Our paper reveals Professor Grigore T. Popaʼs view on medical ethics of anatomical teaching as he was bringing in Romania the experience of the Anglo-Saxon education from both England and the United States. We analysed his lecture: “What Anatomy is or is not?” where he introduced some ideas of medical ethics. Professor Popa considered that medical ethics and deontology are required whenever someone studies the anatomy of the human body. Anatomy teaches us the lesson of respect towards human body, and (...) so it can never be reduced to a useless science, since it expresses the spiritual nature of mankind. (shrink)

The diversity of nanotechnologies and of the governance challenges that their applications raise calls for exploration and learning across different cases. We present an Upstream Oversight Assessment (UOA) of expected benefits and potential harms of nanoparticles made of a synthetic polymer (PLGA) to improve vaccines for farmed salmon. Suggested by Jennifer Kuzma and colleagues, an UOA may help identify and prioritise research needs, and it may support evaluations of the adequacy of relevant existing regulatory frameworks. In this work, the UOA (...) approach is modified and supported with elements from the uncertainty analysis framework developed by Warren Walker and colleagues. Empirically, we draw on relevant available published literature and insights generated in an ongoing nanoparticle salmon vaccine project, in which one of the authors participates. Nanotechnologies have not previously been encountered in the regulatory context of fish vaccines, which in part raises unique challenges due to prospective large scale vaccine use in semi-open aquatic systems. Strengthened through cooperation between ELSA and technology researchers we found the UOA useful for an early mapping of benefits and concerns, and for identifying areas in need of further research prior to a nanoparticle based salmon vaccine is developed and taken into use. We consider our approach to represent one among several complementing initiatives that seek to contribute to early stage evaluations of possible negative side effects, broadly conceived, in order to facilitate a more robust nanotechnology development. (shrink)

How do Language communities generate rules and norms of behavior? How do those norms and rules impact on interpersonal communication and on the Construction of organisations? Such communication implies the testing and comparison of narratives seen as relevant for problem solving in organisations. The Research suggests that reflection rooms are created when persons come together to find responses to Challenges (Called gaps in decision making in Searles Rationality in Action from 2001). The book investigates struggles of narratives over time in (...) the Development of Norwegian fisheries in the 20th Century, testing the relation between the horisontal institution of Language against the hierarchical organization of practical collective activities, in general and in practice in fisheries. (shrink)

Background: The knowledge of scientific dishonesty is scarce and heterogeneous. Therefore this study investigates the experiences with and the attitudes towards various forms of scientific dishonesty among PhD-students at the medical faculties of all Norwegian universities.MethodAnonymous questionnaire distributed to all post graduate students attending introductory PhD-courses at all medical faculties in Norway in 2010/2011. Descriptive statistics. Results: 189 of 262 questionnaires were returned (72.1%). 65% of the respondents had not, during the last year, heard or read about researchers who committed (...) scientific dishonesty. One respondent had experienced pressure to fabricate and to falsify data, and one had experienced pressure to plagiarize data. On average 60% of the respondents were uncertain whether their department had a written policy concerning scientific conduct. About 11% of the respondents had experienced unethical pressure concerning the order of authors during the last 12 months. 10% did not find it inappropriate to report experimental data without having conducted the experiment and 38% did not find it inappropriate to try a variety of different methods of analysis to find a statistically significant result. 13% agreed that it is acceptable to selectively omit contradictory results to expedite publication and 10% found it acceptable to falsify or fabricate data to expedite publication, if they were confident of their findings. 79% agreed that they would be willing to report misconduct to a responsible official. Conclusion: Although there is less scientific dishonesty reported in Norway than in other countries, dishonesty is not unknown to doctoral students. Some forms of scientific misconduct are considered to be acceptable by a significant minority. There was little awareness of relevant policies for scientific conduct, but a high level of willingness to report misconduct. (shrink)

Through the examination of anti-psychiatric theory and literary texts, this timely and thought-provoking volume explores the possibilities of liberating our habitual patterns of perception and consciousness beyond the confines of a capitalist era. In Post-Capitalist Subjectivity in Literature and Anti-Psychiatry, Skott-Myhre asks the question, how might we be different if we didn't live in a capitalist society? By drawing on Marxist and post-Marxist theory, and conducting nuanced analysis of the professional writings of anti-psychiatrists including Basaglia and Laing, and the (...) work of fiction writers Kafka and Garcia Marquez, the text identifies alternative conceptualizations of the self. Focusing in particular on portrayals of institutions and the family, Skott-Myhre proposes that these social systems offer new modes of reading the world and ourselves which will transform social organization and free subjectivity from dominant capitalist structures. This transdisciplinary text responds to a revitalized interest in alternatives to traditional psychology, an interest in life beyond capitalism, and the crisis in the traditional family. Post-Capitalist Subjectivity in Literature and Anti-Psychiatry will offer timely reading for graduate students, researchers, and scholars in the fields of cultural studies, psychology, philosophy, family studies, and interdisciplinary studies. (shrink)

This book offers an intervention into the process of decolonization through the re-subjectification of the settler subject. The authors draw on what Deleuze and Guattari call minor threads of philosophy, pedagogy, spirituality, and healing practices rooted in neglected lineages of European thought and ceremony. The book proposes a methodology for unontologizing the settler subject, which they term 'desettlering.' Rather than fetishizing indigenous theory and practice as a mode for resubjectifying settlers to facilitate land-based decolonization, it offers a fresh approach by (...) looking towards alternative sets of traditions and identity. These alternatives are used to interrogate minoritarian European philosophies, practices, and beliefs, which the authors propose could be deployed to unontologize the settler within current historical conditions. Asserting that such a process is not volitional but a historical necessity, the book offers a novel and timely investigation into who settlers become if they intend to engage seriously in decolonization. It will appeal to an interdisciplinary audience of scholars and researchers in psychological science, social psychology, counseling, philosophy, indigenous studies, and sociology. (shrink)

This article criticizes recent suggestions that the current ELSI research field should accommodate a new direction towards a ‘post-ELSI’ agenda. Post-ELSI research seeks to avoid the modernist division of responsibility for technical and social issues said to characterize ELSI research. Collaboration and integration are consequently the key terms of post-ELSI strategies that are to distinguish it from ELSI strategies. We argue that this call for a new direction relies on an inadequate generalized analysis of ELSI research as modern that will (...) affect the construal of post-ELSI strategies. We are concerned that the call for post-ELSI shift will exclude imaginative proposals and intellectual freedom by narrowing down the scope and methodologies of ELSI and thereby missing opportunities to play a critical and constructive normative role. Instead of framing current trends in ELSI research as a radical and progressive shift from ELSI to post-ELSI, we suggest an alternative story of expansion and diversification described in terms of a drift from ELSA 1 to ELSA 2, pertaining to acronyms in use in Europe. ELSI research has never been modern. It has been experimenting from the very start on ways to mesh the works of humanist, social and natural scientist in order to bridge and build alignments of emerging scientific and societal goals and matters of concern. The development from ELSA 1 to ELSA 2 expands in our account the range of intellectual and methodological capacities of analysis and engagement of complex and dynamic science-society relationships. We present three areas of ELSA expertise to illustrate that the expertise within the field builds on scholarly achievements within the humanities, social sciences as well as the natural sciences. The plurality of disciplinary background of ELSA researchers represents a valuable diversity that enables mutual criticism and formulations of complementary approaches that together constitute a viable ELSA field. (shrink)

Within the research field of computer-mediated communication, extensive attention has been paid to the differences between CMC and spoken conversation, particularly in terms of sequential structure. In this study, the aim is to analyse how participants maintain continuity and handle discontinuities in institutionally arranged, computer-mediated communication. The empirical material consists of chat log files from in-service training courses for professionals in the food production industry. In the chat sessions we analysed, participants initially had some problems in co-ordinating their postings, that (...) is, keeping track of the discussion’s threading.We also found, however, that methods for co-ordinating postings rather quickly were established among the participants. Two methods for making recognizable how postings were to be read were common in the material: 1) the use of personal names to address a specific participant, and 2) recycling part of the content of a previous posting or reformulating the content in the posting addressed in recognizable ways. We also found an emerging norm in their interaction: that of waiting for one’s turn. (shrink)

Counterfactual verbal irony, an evaluative form of figurative language wherein a speaker’s intended meaning is opposite to the literal meaning of his or her words, is used to serve many social goals. Despite recent calls for theoretical accounts to include the factors that influence irony interpretation, few studies have examined the individual differences that may impact verbal irony interpretation. The present study examined whether adults with elevated shyness would generate more negative interpretations of ironic statements. University students with varying degrees (...) of shyness listened to stories wherein one character made literal or ironic criticisms or compliments to another character. Participants then appraised each speaker’s belief and attitude. Self-reported shyness did not predict comprehension of the counterfactual nature of ironic statements. However, shyer adults rated speakers who made ironic compliments as being meaner than did adults low in shyness. Thus, while understanding that ironic speakers intended to communicate their true beliefs, shyer individuals construed the social meaning of irony more negatively. Such interpretive biases may lead shy individuals to more frequently take offense at ironic compliments and experience more negativity in social interactions. (shrink)

The present study tested the impact of attention training on cognition; secondary appraisal of perceived stress, and on metacognition; meta-worry in stressed students. Theoretically derived from the Self-Regulatory Executive Function model (S-REF model; Wells & Matthews, 1994a; 1996), the Attention Training Technique (ATT; Wells, 1990) is intended to promote flexible, voluntary external attention and has been shown to reduce symptoms of psychological distress. The present experimental study explored the effects of ATT on cognitive and metacognitive levels of appraisal, namely perceived (...) stress (primary outcome) and meta-worry (secondary outcome). Stressed students were randomized to an experimental ATT group (n = 23) or a control group (n = 23). The ATT group attended an initial training session followed by four weeks of individual (12 minutes) daily ATT practice. The control group waited for four weeks before receiving the intervention. The outcomes were scores on the Perceived Stress Scale 14 (PSS-14) and the Meta-Worry Questionnaire (MWQ) frequency and belief subscales at post study. Both measures decreased significantly following ATT with large pre to post effect sizes but there were minimal changes in the control group. The between group differences were statistically significant. The results add to the literature on the potential effects of ATT by demonstrating effects on the content of cognitive stress appraisals and on meta-worry in an academic setting in a stressed student sample. (shrink)

There is an increasing interest in how to organize operations carried out by multiteam systems. Large MTS typically operate with a dedicated integration team, responsible for coordinating the operation. We report a study of a military multiteam system that prosecute time-sensitive targets. We asked whether and how the integration team’s efficiency depends on its communication setting. Specifically, we studied how a co-located vs. a distributed communications setting influenced the shared situation awareness and whether the shared situation awareness again influenced the (...) outcome of the decision processes. We found that performance fell when the integration team shifted from a co-located to a distributed setting. The fall in performance seemed to be mediated by a corresponding fall in situation awareness. Moreover, while the performance improved for each run in the co-located setting, we did not see such learning in the distributed setting. Qualitative observations revealed that misunderstandings lasted longer in a distributed configuration than in a co-located setting. We found that situation awareness at level 3 was the only level of situation awareness significant for predicting all dimensions of performance. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed. (shrink)

This article follows Deleuze in investigating the ways in which the symptom as a form of representation can be collapsed into immanence. Exploring the symptoms of schizophrenia and autism, it examines what implications such a collapse may have for the production of the symptom in its double articulation as representation and immanent production. The argument follows Deleuze and Guattari in asserting that symptoms hold an implicit limit for the social forms that deploy them. Arguing that schizophrenia, as one such limit, (...) has been successfully appropriated and deferred by postmodern capitalism, it is proposed that the proliferating symptom cluster of autism may indicate a new form of limit and that ‘‘becoming autistic’’ thus may have potential as revolutionary practice. (shrink)

Considerable research has demonstrated that teachers’ self-efficacy plays a major role in implementing instructional practices in classroom lessons. Only few studies, however, have examined the interplay between how teachers’ self-efficacy and the challenges that lie outside their influence are related to their implementation of cognitive-activation strategies (CAS), especially in science classrooms. Using the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2015 data from Grades 4, 5, 8, and 9, we explored the extent to which teachers’ self-efficacy in teaching science and (...) the perceived time constraints explained variation in the enactment of general and inquiry-based CAS. Overall, the findings revealed that highly self-efficacious teachers reported more frequent implementation of both general and inquiry-based CAS, whereas those who perceived strong time constraints reported a less frequent use of inquiry-based CAS. We further found that these relations differed significantly between primary- and secondary-school teachers and discuss these findings in light of teachers’ professional competences and the resources for science activities in primary and secondary education. We point to the theoretical implications of this study for enhancing the conceptual understanding of generic and specific aspects of CAS and the practical implications for teacher education, professional development, and educational policy. (shrink)

Nanoparticles have multifaceted advantages in drug administration as vaccine delivery and hence hold promises for improving protection of farmed fish against diseases caused by pathogens. However, there are concerns that the benefits associated with distribution of nanoparticles may also be accompanied with risks to the environment and health. The complexity of the natural and social systems involved implies that the information acquired in quantified risk assessments may be inadequate for evidence-based decisions. One controversial strategy for dealing with this kind of (...) uncertainty is the precautionary principle. A few years ago, an UNESCO expert group suggested a new approach for implementation of the principle. Here we compare the UNESCO principle with earlier versions and explore the advantages and disadvantages by employing the UNESCO version to the use of PLGA nanoparticles for delivery of vaccines in aquaculture. Finally, we discuss whether a combined scientific and ethical analysis that involves the concept of responsibility will enable approaches that can provide a supplement to the precautionary principle as basis for decision-making in areas of scientific uncertainty, such as the application of nanoparticles in the vaccination of farmed fish. (shrink)

The future of salmon aquaculture depends on the adoption of alternative feed resources in order to reduce the need for fish meal and fish oil. This may include resources such as species from lower trophic levels, by-products and by-catch from fisheries and aquaculture, animal by-products, plants, genetically modified (GM) plants, nutritionally enhanced GM plants and products from microorganisms and GM microorganisms. Here, we report on a deliberative assessment of these alternative feed resources, involving 18 participants from different interest groups within (...) Norwegian salmon aquaculture. The participants defined a broad range of appraisal criteria concerning health and welfare issues, economical issues, environmental issues, and knowledge and social issues. A number of uncertainties, in the form of incomplete knowledge, diverging opinions, and context specific factors were identified when the participants evaluated the alternatives. Our findings support the need for more research on the suitability of alternative feed resources for farmed salmon. Additionally, the study underlines the importance of facilitating deliberative assessments in order to map the plurality of perspectives and explore qualitative aspects of uncertainty. Such initiatives improve the information base upon which decisions on future feed resources for farmed salmon are made. (shrink)

En stor del av dagens forskningsaktivitet er knyttet til utvikling av ny teknologi. Teknologiutvikling anses gjerne som et gode, fordi den bidrar til økt eller ny bruk av naturlige ressurser til beste for menneskers generelle levekår og helse, samt miljøet og samfunnet som helhet. Bruk av ny teknologi innebærer imidlertid også risiko for uønskede effekter. Risikovurderinger er ofte preget av vitenskapelig usikkerhet, spesielt med hensyn til effekter som oppstår over tid. Denne usikkerheten reiser nye etiske dilemmaer og gjør det nødvendig (...) med en kritisk vurdering av kunnskapsgrunnlaget. I denne artikkelen fokuserer vi på hvilke etiske utfordringer vitenskapelig usikkerhet har for forskning og forvaltning, og vi vil se nærmere på bruk av DNA-vaksiner i oppdrettsnæring. Vi argumenterer for at det er viktig å anerkjenne kvalitative former for vitenskapelig usikkerhet, som går utover det som uttrykkes i statistiske termer. Walker & Harremoeës usikkerhetsanalyse presenteres som en metode for å identifisere og systematisere vitenskapelig usikkerhet av kvalitativ karakter. En slik analyse kan øke forskeres evne til å reflektere over og kommunisere usikkerhet knyttet til eget arbeid. Vi argumenterer videre for at kommunikasjon av vitenskapelig usikkerhet bør være en del av forskerens etiske ansvar, blant annet for å stimulere føre-var-basert forskning og forvaltning. En helhetsvurdering av nytte, risikomomenter og usikkerhet kan best oppnås gjennom en tverrfaglig tilnærming. Det vil bidra til at de implisitte verdiene som er assosiert til bruk av ny teknologi blir bedre belyst. (shrink)

This book explores the complex questions associated with health care, technology, peacemaking, and other twenty-first century ethical issues. It provokes critical thought and a renewed awareness of the need to uncover unexamined assumptions that can impact decision making, while holding in tension the fact that there are no perfect answers to these issues. The essays offer substance for study and stimulate religious and ethical analysis.

Regulation of the subcellular localization of certain proteins is a mechanism for the regulation of their biological activities. FGF‐2 can be produced as distinct isoforms by alternative initiation of translation on a single mRNA and the isoforms are differently sorted in cells. High molecular weight FGF‐2 isoforms are not secreted from the cell, but are transported to the nucleus where they regulate cell growth or behavior in an intracrine fashion. 18 kDa FGF‐2 can be secreted to the extracellular medium where (...) it acts as a conventional growth factor by binding to and activation of cell‐surface receptors. Furthermore, following receptor‐mediated endocytosis, the exogenous FGF‐2 can be transported to the nuclei of target cells, and this is of importance for the transmittance of a mitogenic signal. The growth factor is able to interact with several intracellular proteins. Here, the mode of action and biological role of intracellular FGF‐2 are discussed. BioEssays 28: 504–514, 2006. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Regulation of the subcellular localization of certain proteins is a mechanism for the regulation of their biological activities. FGF‐2 can be produced as distinct isoforms by alternative initiation of translation on a single mRNA and the isoforms are differently sorted in cells. High molecular weight FGF‐2 isoforms are not secreted from the cell, but are transported to the nucleus where they regulate cell growth or behavior in an intracrine fashion. 18 kDa FGF‐2 can be secreted to the extracellular medium where (...) it acts as a conventional growth factor by binding to and activation of cell‐surface receptors. Furthermore, following receptor‐mediated endocytosis, the exogenous FGF‐2 can be transported to the nuclei of target cells, and this is of importance for the transmittance of a mitogenic signal. The growth factor is able to interact with several intracellular proteins. Here, the mode of action and biological role of intracellular FGF‐2 are discussed. BioEssays 28: 504–514, 2006. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

How can we imagine a future not driven by capitalist assumptions about humans and the wider world? How are a range of contemporary artistic and popular cultural practices already providing pathways to post-capitalist futures? Authors from a variety of disciplines answer these questions through writings on blues and hip hop, virtual reality, post-colonial science fiction, virtual gaming, riot grrrls and punk, raku pottery, post-pornography fanzines, zombie films, and role playing. The essays in Art as Revolt are clustered around themes such (...) as technology and the future, aesthetics and resistance, and ethnographies of the self beyond traditional understandings of identity. Using philosophies of immanence – describing a system that gives rise to itself, independent of outside forces – drawn from a rich and evolving tradition that includes Spinoza, Nietzsche, Deleuze, and Braidotti, the authors and editors provide an engrossing range of analysis and speculation. Together the essays, written by experts in their fields, stage an important collective, transdisciplinary conversation about how best to talk about art and politics today. Sophisticated in its theoretical and philosophical premises, and engaging some of the most pressing questions in cultural studies and artistic practice today, Art as Revolt does not provide comfortable closure. Instead, it is understood by its authors to be a “Dionysian machine,” a generator of open-ended possibility and potential that challenges readers to affirm their own belief in the futures of this world. Contributors include Timothy J. Beck, Mark Bishop, Dave Collins, David Fancy, Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw, Malisa Kurtz, Nicole Land, Eric Lochhead, Douglas Ord, Joanna Perkins, Peter Rehberg, Chris Richardson, Hans Skott-Myhre, and Kathleen Skott-Myhre. (shrink)

_Sustainable development, as explained through the three pillars of environment, society and economy, is a well-known concept and has been used extensively in recent decades. There is finally a growing acknowledgement that environmental sustainability is the prerequisite for achieving the other two pillars of societal and economic sustainability. Nevertheless, there is a tendency to not explicate the negative interactions between the pillars of sustainability, as in the interlinkages between the UN’s sustainable development goals. In this paper, we draw attention to (...) a method for explicating both reinforcing and counteracting goals. This is a conceptual paper but with short, illustrative examples from different levels of the R&D sphere on how this method can be used: one example is at the project level, two are from financiers of R&D projects, and the other is at the UN level. Finally, a longer discussion on relevant ethical guidelines is presented. This paper addresses the responsibility to recognize when and how sustainability goals counteract each other through two key actions. The first action is to identify transgressions of global ecological system boundaries and the resulting serious consequences for trading on environmental sustainability. The second involves bringing to the fore relevant ethical guidelines from the Norwegian National Research Ethics Committee. An update of these guidelines is suggested to reflect recent research on the transgression of planetary boundaries and the consequences for a safe operating space for humans on Earth_. _Keywords:_ Environmental sustainability, ethical guidelines for research, UN sustainable development goals, counteracting goals. (shrink)

Aquaculture is the fastest growing animal producing sector in the world and is expected to play an important role in global food supply. Along with this growth, concerns have been raised about the environmental effects of escapees and pollution, fish welfare, and consumer health as well as the use of marine resources for producing fish feed. In this paper we present some of the major challenges salmon farming is facing today. We discuss issues of relevance to how to ensure sustainability, (...) by focusing on animal production systems, breeding approaches, sources for feed ingredients, and genetic engineering strategies. Other crucial issues such as animal welfare, environmental quality, and ethics are elaborated with regard to relevance for the sustainability of aquaculture. Additionally, we comment on socio-economic distributive implications by intellectual property rights (IPR) strategies on access to genetic material and traceability. To improve sustainability of salmon farming we suggest that there is a need for new approaches to guide research, for identification of ethical issues, and for engaging stakeholders in resolving these challenges. (shrink)

Several theories link consciousness to complex cortical dynamics, as suggested by comparison of brain signal diversity between conscious states and states where consciousness is lost or reduced. In particular, Lempel-Ziv complexity, amplitude coalition entropy and synchrony coalition entropy distinguish wakefulness and REM sleep from deep sleep and anesthesia, and are elevated in psychedelic states, reported to increase the range and vividness of conscious contents. Some studies have even found correlations between complexity measures and facets of self-reported experience. As suggested by (...) integrated information theory and the entropic brain hypothesis, measures of differentiation and signal diversity may therefore be measurable correlates of consciousness and phenomenological richness. Inspired by these ideas, we tested three hypotheses about EEG signal diversity related to sleep and dreaming. First, diversity should decrease with successively deeper stages of non-REM sleep. Second, signal diversity within the same sleep stage should be higher for periods of dreaming vs. non-dreaming. Third, specific aspects of dream contents should correlate with signal diversity in corresponding cortical regions. We employed a repeated awakening paradigm in sleep deprived healthy volunteers, with immediate dream report and rating of dream content along a thought-perceptual axis, from exclusively thought-like to exclusively perceptual. Generalized linear mixed models were used to assess how signal diversity varied with sleep stage, dreaming and thought-perceptual rating. Signal diversity decreased with sleep depth, but was not significantly different between dreaming and non-dreaming, even though there was a significant positive correlation between Lempel-Ziv complexity of EEG recorded over the posterior cortex and thought-perceptual ratings of dream contents. (shrink)

The primary transcripts, pre‐mRNAs, of almost all protein‐coding genes in higher eukaryotes contain multiple non‐coding intervening sequences, introns, which must be precisely removed to yield translatable mRNAs. The process of intron excision, splicing, takes place in a massive ribonucleoprotein complex known as the spliceosome. Extensive studies, both genetic and biochemical, in a variety of systems have revealed that essential components of the spliceosome include five small RNAs–U1, U2, U4, U5 and U6, each of which functions as a RNA, protein complex (...) called an snRNP (small nuclear ribonucleoprotein). In addition to snRNPs, splicing requires many non‐snRNP protein factors, the exact nature and number of which has been unclear. Technical advances, including new affinity purification methods and improved mass spectrometry techniques, coupled with the completion of many genome sequences, have now permitted a number of proteomic analyses of purified spliceosomes. These studies, recently reviewed by Jurica and Moore,1 reveal that the spliceosome is composed of as many as 300 distinct proteins and five RNAs, making it among the most complex macromolecular machines known. BioEssays 25:1147–1149, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)