The gelsolin gene family encodes a number of higher eukaryotic actin-binding proteins that are thought to function in the cytoplasm by severing, capping, nucleating or bundling actin filaments. Recent evidence, however, suggests that several members of the gelsolin family may have adopted unexpected nuclear functions including a role in regulating transcription. In particular, flightless I, supervillin and gelsolin itself have roles as coactivators for nuclear receptors, despite the fact that their divergence appears to predate the evolutionary appearance of nuclear receptors. (...) Flightless I has been shown to bind both actin and the actin-related BAF53a protein, which are subunits of SWI/SNF-like chromatin remodelling complexes. The primary sequences of some actin-related proteins such as BAF53a exhibit conservation of residues that, in actin itself, are known to interact with gelsolin-related proteins. In summary, there is a growing body of evidence supporting a biological role in the nucleus for actin, Arps and actin-binding proteins and, in particular, the gelsolin family of actin-binding proteins. (c) 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Hunting Down Social Darwinism addresses the manner in which free-market advocacy is often criticized as social Darwinism. It explores the term’s meaning and the reasons such criticisms prove to be misleading. Hayashi examines whether it is fair to describe nineteenth-century free-market advocates Spencer and Sumner as social Darwinists.

This collection addresses whether ethicists, like authorities in other fields, can speak as experts in their subject matter. Though ethics consultation is a growing practice in medical contexts, there remain difficult questions about the role of ethicists in professional decision-making. Contributors examine the nature and plausibility of moral expertise, the relationship between character and expertise, the nature and limits of moral authority, how one might become a moral expert, and the trustworthiness of moral testimony. This volume engages with the growing (...) literature in these debates and offers new perspectives from both academics and practitioners. The readings will be of particular interest to bioethicists, clinicians, ethics committees, and students of social epistemology. These new essays promise to advance discussions in the professionalization and accreditation of ethics consultation. (shrink)

This book is the first comprehensive report and analysis of the Dutch euthanasia experience over the last three decades. In contrast to most books about euthanasia, which are written by authors from countries where the practice is illegal and therefore practised only secretly, this book analyzes empirical data and real-life clinical behavior. Its essays were written by the leading Dutch scholars and clinicians who shaped euthanasia policy and who have studied, evaluated and helped regulate it. Some of them have themselves (...) practised euthanasia. The book will contribute to the world literature on physician-assisted death by providing a comprehensive examination of how euthanasia has been practised and how it has evolved in one specific national and cultural context. It will greatly advance the understanding of euthanasia among both advocates and opponents of the practice. (shrink)

Our aim in this article is to attempt to discuss propagating organization of process, a poorly articulated union of matter, energy, work, constraints and that vexed concept, “information”, which unite in far from equilibrium living physical systems. Our hope is to stimulate discussions by philosophers of biology and biologists to further clarify the concepts we discuss here. We place our discussion in the broad context of a “general biology”, properties that might well be found in life anywhere in the cosmos, (...) freed from the specific examples of terrestrial life after 3.8 billion years of evolution. By placing the discussion in this wider, if still hypothetical, context, we also try to place in context some of the extant discussion of information as intimately related to DNA, RNA and protein transcription and translation processes. While characteristic of current terrestrial life, there are no compelling grounds to suppose the same mechanisms would be involved in any life form able to evolve by heritable variation and natural selection. In turn, this allows us to discuss at least briefly, the focus of much of the philosophy of biology on population genetics, which, of course, assumes DNA, RNA, proteins, and other features of terrestrial life. Presumably, evolution by natural selection—and perhaps self-organization—could occur on many worlds via different causal mechanisms. Here we seek a non-reductionist explanation for the synthesis, accumulation, and propagation of information, work, and constraint, which we hope will provide some insight into both the biotic and abiotic universe, in terms of both molecular self reproduction and the basic work energy cycle where work is the constrained release of energy into a few degrees of freedom. The typical requirement for work itself is to construct those very constraints on the release of energy that then constitute further work. Information creation, we argue, arises in two ways: first information as natural selection assembling the very constraints on the release of energy that then constitutes work and the propagation of organization. Second, information in a more extended sense is “semiotic”, that is about the world or internal state of the organism and requires appropriate response. The idea is to combine ideas from biology, physics, and computer science, to formulate explanatory hypotheses on how information can be captured and rendered in the expected physical manifestation, which can then participate in the propagation of the organization of process in the expected biological work cycles to create the diversity in our observable biosphere. Our conclusions, to date, of this enquiry suggest a foundation which views information as the construction of constraints, which, in their physical manifestation, partially underlie the processes of evolution to dynamically determine the fitness of organisms within the context of a biotic universe. (shrink)

The use of targets to direct public health programmes, particularly in global initiatives, has become widely accepted and commonplace. This paper is an ethical analysis of the utilisation of targets in global public health using our fieldwork on and experiences with voluntary medical male circumcision initiatives in Kenya. Among the many countries involved in VMMC for HIV prevention, Kenya is considered a success story, its programmes having medically circumcised nearly 2 million men since 2007. We describe ethically problematic practices in (...) Kenyan VMMC programmes revealed by our fieldwork, how the problems are related to the pursuit of targets and discuss possible approaches to their management. Although the establishment and pursuit of targets in public health can have many benefits, assessments of target-driven programmes tend to focus on quantifiable outcomes rather than the processes by which the outcomes are obtained. However, in order to speak more robustly about programmatic ‘success’, and to maintain community trust, it is vital to ethically evaluate how a public health initiative is actually implemented in the pursuit of its targets. (shrink)

Randomized controlled trial trial designs exist on an explanatory-pragmatic spectrum, depending on the degree to which a study aims to address a question of efficacy or effectiveness. As conceptualized by Schwartz and Lellouch in 1967, an explanatory approach to trial design emphasizes hypothesis testing about the mechanisms of action of treatments under ideal conditions, whereas a pragmatic approach emphasizes testing effectiveness of two or more available treatments in real-world conditions. Interest in, and the number of, pragmatic trials has grown substantially (...) in recent years, with increased recognition by funders and stakeholders worldwide of the need for credible evidence to inform clinical decision-making. This increase has been accompanied by the onset of learning healthcare systems, as well as an increasing focus on patient-oriented research. However, pragmatic trials have ethical challenges that have not yet been identified or adequately characterized. The present study aims to explore the views of key stakeholders with respect to ethical issues raised by the design and conduct of pragmatic trials. It is embedded within a large, four-year project that seeks to develop guidance for the ethical design and conduct of pragmatic trials. As a first step, this study will address important gaps in the current empirical literature with respect to identifying a comprehensive range of ethical issues arising from the design and conduct of pragmatic trials. By opening up a broad range of topics for consideration within our parallel ethical analysis, we will extend the current debate, which has largely emphasized issues of consent, to the range of ethical considerations that may flow from specific design choices. Semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, across multiple jurisdictions, identified based on their known experience and/or expertise with pragmatic trials. We expect that the study outputs will be of interest to a wide range of knowledge users including trialists, ethicists, research ethics committees, journal editors, regulators, healthcare policymakers, research funders and patient groups. All publications will adhere to the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications. (shrink)

Although the presence or absence of a pitch accent clearly can play an important role in signaling the discourse and information structure of an utterance, whether the form of an accent determines the type of information it conveys is more controversial. We used an eye‐tracking paradigm to investigate whether H*, which has been argued to signal new information, evokes different eye fixations than L+H*, which has been argued to signal the presence of contrast. Our results demonstrate that although listeners interpret (...) these accents differently, their interpretive domains overlap. L+H* creates a strong bias toward contrast referents whereas H* is compatible with both new and contrast referents. (shrink)

Ongoing global efforts to circumcise adolescent and adult males to reduce their risk of acquiring HIV constitute the largest public health prevention initiative, using surgical means, in human history. Voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) programs in Africa have significantly altered social norms related to male circumcision among previously non-circumcising groups and groups that have practiced traditional (non-medical) circumcision. One consequence of this change is the stigmatization of males who, for whatever reason, remain uncircumcised. This paper discusses the ethics of stigma (...) with regard to uncircumcised adolescent males in global VMMC programs, particularly in certain recruitment, demand creation and social norm interventions. Grounded in our own experiences gained while conducting HIV-related ethics research with adolescents in Kenya, we argue that use of explicit or implicit stigma to increase the number of VMMC volunteers is unethical from a public health ethics perspective, particularly in campaigns that leverage social norms of masculinity. Ongoing global efforts to circumcise adolescent and adult males to reduce their risk of acquiring HIV constitute the largest public health prevention initiative, using surgical means, in human history. VMMC programs in Africa have significantly altered social norms related to male circumcision among previously non-circumcising groups and groups that have practiced traditional (non-medical) circumcision. One consequence of this change is the stigmatization of males who, for whatever reason, remain uncircumcised. This paper discusses the ethics of stigma with regard to uncircumcised adolescent males in global VMMC programs, particularly in certain recruitment, demand creation and social norm interventions. Grounded in our own experiences gained while conducting HIV-related ethics research with adolescents in Kenya, we argue that use of explicit or implicit stigma to increase the number of VMMC volunteers is unethical from a public health ethics perspective, particularly in campaigns that leverage social norms of masculinity. (shrink)

Newborn bloodspot screening programs are some of the longest running population screening programs internationally. Debate continues regarding the need for parents to give consent to having their child screened. Little attention has been paid to how meanings of consent-related terminology vary among stakeholders and the implications of this for practice. We undertook semi-structured interviews with parents, healthcare professionals and policy decision makers in two Canadian provinces. Conceptions of consent-related terms revolved around seven factors within two broad domains, decision-making and information (...) attainment. Decision-making comprised: parent decision authority; voluntariness; parent engagement with decision-making; and the process of enacting choice. Information ascertainment comprised: professional responsibilities ; parent responsibilities; and the need for discussion and understanding prior to a decision. Our findings indicate that consent-related terms are variously understood, with substantive implications for practice. We suggest that consent procedures should be explained descriptively, regardless of approach, so there are clear indications of what is expected of parents and healthcare professionals. Support systems are required both to meet the educational needs of parents and families and to support healthcare professionals in delivering information in a manner in keeping with parent needs. (shrink)

The present volume examines an underdeveloped component in the theology of Karl Barth. Specifically, the work asks: how, and to what extent, can faith be understood as ontologically proper to the trinitarian becoming of God? The work argues for an ontological grounding of faith in the becoming of God. To do so, Watson performs an in-depth examination of Barth's understanding of the concept of faith. Using Barth's threefold movement of revelation, the work contends God can be thought of as (...) the subject (Glaubender), predicate (Glaube), and object (Geglaubte) of faith. Barth's theological exposition of Jesus as subject and object of election offers a promising proposal for how faith is ontologically understood. At the same time, the argument brings to the fore a crucial component of Barth's theological program, namely, the concept of recognition (Anerkennung). God's recognizing faith is then conceived as the condition of the possibility of human faith. Drawing on Barth's entire oeuvre, Watson offers an understanding of the divine becoming of faith that opens possibilities for thinking systematically about the realization of the corresponding human faith. (shrink)

The mainstream literature on corporate governance is based on the premise of conflicts of interest in a competitive game played by variously defined stakeholders and thus builds explicitly and/or implicitly on masculinist ethical theories. This article argues that insights from feminist ethics, and in particular ethics of care, can provide a different, yet relevant, lens through which to study corporate governance. Based on feminist ethical theories, the article conceptualises a governance model that is different from the current normative orthodoxy.

Working parents in are struggling to balance the demands of their occupation with those of childcare and homeschooling during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, studies show that women are shouldering more of the burden and reporting greater levels of psychological distress, anxiety, and depression relative to men. However, research has yet to show that increases in psychological symptoms are linked to changes in stress during the pandemic. Herein, we conduct a small-N study to explore the associations between stress and psychological symptoms (...) during the pandemic among mothers using structural equation modeling, namely latent change score models. Thirty-three mothers completed questionnaires reporting current anxious and depressive symptoms, as well as stressful life experiences prior to-versus during the pandemic. Women endorsed significantly more stressful events during the pandemic, relative to the pre-pandemic period. Additionally, 58% of mothers scored as moderate-to-high risk for developing a stress-related physical illness in the near future because of their pandemic-level stress. Depressive symptoms were associated with the degree of change in life stress, whereas anxiety symptoms were more related to pre-pandemic levels of stress. The present study preliminarily sheds light on the nuanced antecedents to mothers’ experiences of anxious and depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although further work is needed in larger, more diverse samples of mothers, this study highlights the potential need for appropriate policies, and prevention and intervention programs to ameliorate the effects of pandemics on mothers’ mental health. (shrink)

Legal, medical, and public health professionals have been complicit in creating and maintaining systems that drive health inequities. To ameliorate this, current and future leaders in law, medicine, and public health must learn about racism and its impact along the life course trajectory and how to engage in antiracist practice and health equity work.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:For More than One Voice: Toward a Philosophy of Vocal ExpressionSarah K. Burgess and Stuart J. MurrayFor More than One Voice: Toward a Philosophy of Vocal Expression. Adriana Cavarero. Trans. Paul A. Kottman. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005. Pp. 262. $65.00, hardcover; $24.95, paperback.Adriana Cavarero's most recent book, For More than One Voice, offers the reader a critique of Western metaphysics that challenges the hegemony of speech's (...) relation to thought within politics. Revisiting Aristotle's Politics, Cavarero examines the famous definition of man as "zoon logon echon"—usually translated as "rational animal." She is critical of the tradition that renders logos here as "reason" or "rationality," modeled on the abstract and disembodied Platonic idea. Reading the Politics alongside the Poetics, she brings politics into a distinctly rhetorical sphere, and therefore figures logos as "phone semantike." In this light, man is a "speaking animal," an animal who speaks with a voice (phone) that is meaningful (semantike—an adjectival form that qualifies the voice itself). Cavarero's argument is that voice and meaning—phonic and semantic—must be sharply distinguished. The history of Western philosophy, she contends, has effaced this vital difference and focused instead on speech as a unitary phenomenon in which the vocalic and the semantic are always already joined as meaningful signification. In this way, the singularity of the vocalic itself has been elided in favor of speech that strongly privileges meaning. She therefore wishes to deliver us from language, as it were, through a recuperation of the force of the vocalic, the acoustic, the resonant and sonorous auditory quality of phone.Absent in the history of Western philosophy, this sonorous aspect of the vocalic stands as a corrective to our logocentric metaphysical tradition that singularly values the visual over the acoustic, semantic content over vocal utterances, and an abstract, anonymous "what" over a particular, embodied "who." Cavarero claims that the vocalic is an "anti-metaphysical" force that exceeds and challenges signification. In other words, the vocalic immediately communicates the uniqueness of the speaker without recourse to the signifying content of his or her speech. The voice is essentially relational—a relation that is described as "the condition of every communication.... the communicability of the communicable, or the significance of signification" (29). Indeed, for Cavarero the voice is that which "precedes, generates, and exceeds verbal communication" [End Page 166] (29–30). In this way, remarkably, Cavarero refigures the voice as a presymbolic origin that is both temporally and ontologically prior to signification, as that which is a condition of possibility for signification, and as that which is never exhausted by any signifying speech act as such.The voice is the expression of one unique, embodied individual to another. This expression, a "reciprocal invocation" founded in the sonorous, rhythmic, and resonant materiality of the voice, constitutes a "duet," a musical exchange of voices in and through which individuals mutually invoke one another. Cavarero resists inscribing such a relation within the symbolic realm; yet for her this relation is a "wordless language" that takes place in the paradigmatic scene between mother and infant. Here, in this originary scene, there is not yet the movement of language or speech as such, but the rhythm and cadence of demand and response—the voices of mother and infant that invoke one another. Drawing on Hélène Cixous's and Julia Kristeva's well-known work on the maternal chora, Cavarero demonstrates that the cadence of the "la-la melody" exchanged between mother and infant "configure[s] a reciprocal dependence" (170) that takes a structural form in the movement between demand and response.For Cavarero, the "scene of infancy" enjoys a primacy: it is both ontologically and chronologically prior to the institution of language and law. The maternal chora is figured as that which invisibly underwrites what will be understood as the law of the father—a law that is said to mark the inauguration of language. But if the law of the father is rational and semantic, the maternal should not be conceived as simply irrational and pure sound. For Cavarero, the maternal vocalic demonstrates its own reason through its rhythmic and musical resonance... (shrink)

Mental health professionals working in hospitals or community clinics inevitably face the realisation that we possess imperfect conceptual means to understand mental disorders. In this paper the authors bring together ideas from the fields of Philosophy, Psychiatry, Cognitive Psychology and Linguistics to reflect on the ways we represent phenomena of high practical importance that we often take for granted, but are nevertheless difficult to define in ontological terms. The paper follows through the development of the concept of psychosis over the (...) last two centuries in the interplay of three different conceptual orientations: the categorical, dimensional and network approaches. Each of these represent the available knowledge and dominant thinking styles of the era in which they emerged and take markedly different stances regarding the nature of mental phenomena. Without particular commitment to any ontological positions or models described, the authors invite the reader into a thinking process about the strengths and weaknesses of these models, and how they can be reconciled in multidisciplinary settings to benefit the process of patient care. (shrink)

The attitudes of patients' to consent have changed over the years, but there has been little systematic study of the attitudes of anaesthetists and surgeons in this process. We aimed to describe observations made on the attitudes of medical professionals working in the UK to issues surrounding informed consent.

Strong evidence shows that exposure and engagement with the natural world not only improve human wellbeing but can also help promote environmentally friendly behaviors. Human-nature relationships are at the heart of global agendas promoted by international organizations including the World Health Organization’s “One Health” and the United Nations “Ocean Decade.” These agendas demand collaborative multisector interdisciplinary efforts at local, national, and global levels. However, while global agendas highlight global goals for a sustainable world, developing science that directly addresses these agendas (...) from design through to delivery and outputs does not come without its challenges. In this article, we present the outcomes of international meetings between researchers, stakeholders, and policymakers from the United Kingdom and Brazil. We propose a model for interdisciplinary work under such global agendas, particularly the interface between One Health and the UN Ocean Decade and identify three priority research areas closely linked to each other: human-nature connection, conservation-human behavior, and implementation strategies. We also discuss a number of recommendations for moving forward. (shrink)

Drawing on a landscape analysis of existing data-sharing initiatives, in-depth interviews with expert stakeholders, and public deliberations with community advisory panels across the U.S., we describe features of the evolving medical information commons. We identify participant-centricity and trustworthiness as the most important features of an MIC and discuss the implications for those seeking to create a sustainable, useful, and widely available collection of linked resources for research and other purposes.

Although the use of the cluster randomized trial (CRT) design to evaluate vaccines, public health interventions or health systems is increasing, the ethical issues posed by the design are not adequately addressed, especially in low- and middle-income country settings (LMICs). To help reveal ethical challenges, qualitative interviews were conducted with key stakeholders experienced in designing and conducting two selected CRTs in Malawi. The 18 interviewed stakeholders included investigators, clinicians, nurses, data management personnel and community workers who were invited to share (...) their experiences related to implementation of CRTs. Data analysis revealed five major themes with ethical implications: (1) The moral obligation for health care providers to participate in health research and its compensation; (2) Suboptimal care services compromising the integrity of CRT; (3) Ensuring scientific validity and withholding care service; (4) Obtaining valid consent and permission for waiver of consent; and (5) Inadequate risk assessment for trial participation. Understanding key ethical issues posed by CRTs in Malawi could improve ethical review and research oversight of this particular study design. (shrink)

This article presents preliminary considerations and results from a research project designed to investigate the relation between gestures, graphic traces and perceptions. More specifically, the project aims to test the hypothesis that graphic traces, including handwriting, can set up graphetic empathy between writers and readers of traces across long temporal and spatial distances. Insofar as a graphic trace is lawfully related to the gesture by which it came into being, the trace itself will hold information about the gesture, which may (...) resonate with the sensorimotor system of a perceiver, as if they themselves performed the gesture. If this is in fact so, it will have important and hitherto unanticipated implications for our understanding of the embodiment of reading. As part of the article we will present and discuss the results of a neurophenomenological trial study through which we attempt to operationalize the gesture-trace and trace–perception relations respectively. (shrink)

What is the value of having medical students engage in creative production as part of their learning? Creating something new requires medical students to take risks and even to fail--something they tend to be neither accustomed to nor comfortable with doing. “Making stuff” can help students prepare for such failures in a controlled environment that doesn’t threaten their professional identities. Furthermore, doing so can facilitate students becoming resilient and creative problem-solvers who strive to find new ways to address vexing questions. (...) Though creating something new can be fun, this is not the main outcome of interest. Rather, the principle reason we recommend devoting precious curricular time to creative endeavors is because it helps medical students become better doctors. (shrink)