The proteasome family of proteases comprises oligomeric assemblies of very different symmetry. In different sizes, it features ring‐like oligomers with dihedral symmetry that allow the stacking of further rings of regulatory subunits as observed in the modular proteasome system, but also less symmetric helical assemblies. Comprehensive sequence and structural analyses of proteasome homologs reveal a parsimonious scenario of how symmetry may have emerged from a monomeric ancestral precursor and how it may have evolved throughout the proteasome family. The four characterized (...) representatives—ancestral β subunit (Anbu), HslV, betaproteobacterial proteasome homolog (BPH), and the 20S proteasome—are outlasting cornerstones in the family's evolutionary history, each marking a transition in symmetry. This article contextualizes the evolutionary and functional key aspects of these symmetry transitions, explaining how they facilitated the diversification and concurrent evolution of independent proteolytic systems side by side, each with its customized network of auxiliary interactors. -/- . (shrink)

The European project European and Latin American Systems of Ethics Regulation of Biomedical Research Project (EULABOR) has carried out the first comparative analysis of ethics regulation systems for biomedical research in seven countries in Europe and Latin America, evaluating their roles in the protection of human subjects. We developed a conceptual and methodological framework defining ‘ethics regulation system for biomedical research’ as a set of actors, institutions, codes and laws involved in overseeing the ethics of biomedical research on humans. This (...) framework allowed us to develop comprehensive national reports by conducting semi-structured interviews to key informants. These reports were summarised and analysed in a comparative analysis. The study showed that the regulatory framework for clinical research in these countries differ in scope. It showed that despite the different political contexts, actors involved and motivations for creating the regulation, in most of the studied countries it was the government who took the lead in setting up the system. The study also showed that Europe and Latin America are similar regarding national bodies and research ethics committees, but the Brazilian system has strong and noteworthy specificities. (shrink)

A diagonal version of the strong reflection principle is introduced, along with fragments of this principle associated with arbitrary forcing classes. The relationships between the resulting principles and related principles, such as the corresponding forcing axioms and the corresponding fragments of the strong reflection principle, are analyzed, and consequences are presented. Some of these consequences are “exact” versions of diagonal stationary reflection principles of sets of ordinals. We also separate some of these diagonal strong reflection principles from related axioms.

Here we describe how more important findings were obtained in a delirium study by using an informal assessment of mental capacity, and, in those who lacked capacity, obtaining consent later when or if capacity returned or a proxy was found. From a total of 233 patients 23 patients lacked capacity as judged by our informal capacity judgment and 210 did not. Of those who lacked capacity, 13 agreed to enter in the study. Six of them regained capacity later. When these (...) 13 participants were excluded from analysis, significant findings were no longer evident. These results show that by the inclusion of subjects who lacked capacity the results of analyses of the condition from whish they suffer are altered. We suggest that this approach to the study of delirium is more ethical than the usual system of strict exclusion of people who lack capacity to give consent and for whom assent is not available. (shrink)

This white paper outlines the plans of the History Philosophy Culture Working Group of the Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration.

We present a one per cent measurement of the cosmic distance scale from the detections of the baryon acoustic oscillations in the clustering of galaxies from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. Our results come from the Data Release 11 sample, containing nearly one million galaxies and covering approximately 8500 square degrees and the redshift range 0.2 < z < 0.7. We also compare these results with those from the publicly released (...) DR9 and DR10 samples. Assuming a concordance Λ cold dark matter cosmological model, the DR11 sample covers a volume of 13 Gpc3 and is the largest region of the Universe ever surveyed at this density. We measure the correlation function and power spectrum, including density-field reconstruction of the BAO feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of over 7σ in both the correlation function and power spectrum. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance relative to the sound horizon at the drag epoch, rd, which has a value of rd,fid = 149.28 Mpc in our fiducial cosmology. We find DV = at z = 0.32 and DV = at z = 0.57. At 1.0 per cent, this latter measure is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. Separating the clustering along and transverse to the line of sight yields measurements at z = 0.57 of DA = and H =. Our measurements of the distance scale are in good agreement with previous BAO measurements and with the predictions from cosmic microwave background data for a spatially flat CDM model with a cosmological constant. © 2014 The Author Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. (shrink)

Ours are Days of Decision and it's indispensable to transform our technics. For it, we must abandon the inherited conception of technics based on neutrality and autonomy. To this end, in this article we develop a socio-historical ontology for technics that argues: (a) To understand technics we have to take into consideration technical objects, handling, and the degree of guidance of the animal user. (b) Each technics is inseparable from its society. (c) The idea of a free use of technics (...) is illusory. There are always unexpected impacts and various uses of a given technics. (d) Technologies of the Capitalocene are imperial. (e) Technologies have acquired a destructive inertia and we have the obligation to understand technological development as a political phenomenon. (f) In order to go beyond the Capitalocene and advance towards Degrowth, we have to move from imperial technologies to humble technics. (shrink)

Résumé Cet article examine la manière dont Jean Scot Érigène s’approprie et emploie de façon constructive l’anthropologie de Maxime le Confesseur. Il s’agit de montrer que la division en cinq parties de l’être, puisée dans l’ Ambiguum 41 de Maxime le Confesseur, constitue le cadre du Periphyseon. Selon l’auteur, la compréhension de l’être humain de Maxime le Confesseur comme « un atelier de création », comme la synthèse de tous les aspects de la création, comme un agent d’unification, fournit la (...) prémisse anthropologique pour la division dialectique du genre de la nature propre à Érigène. C’est dans le cadre de l’ontologie de Maxime centrée sur « l’homme comme un atelier de création » qu’Érigène a recours à la tradition des arts libéraux. Par conséquent, la division du genre de la nature comme un exercice dialectique doit être comprise dans le cadre de l’appropriation par Érigène de la division en cinq parties de l’être de Maxime le Confesseur, ainsi que de son corollaire, l’anthropologie de l’ officina omnium o. Le projet du Periphyseon est guidé par la possibilité qu’à travers l’application des arts, l’homme pourrait devenir l’ officina omnium, en dépit de la chute ; si la connaissance intellectuelle de la création peut être achevée, alors le retour de toute la création à l’unité de l’être humain intelligible et ultimement à celle de Dieu pourrait être garanti. (shrink)

Le présent article retrace les étapes qui ont présidé à l’élaboration d’une base de données d’exemples de structures à subordonnées comparatives du français. Ce travail a été réalisé dans le cadre du projet « Structures à Subordonnées Comparatives du français » (SCF). Piloté par le laboratoire LaTTiCe sous la direction de C. Fuchs, ce projet a réuni des membres de quatre laboratoires français : B. Combettes et A. Kuyumcuyan (ATILF, Nancy), C. Guimier (CRISCO, Caen), N. Fournier et M. Morinièr..

Le présent article retrace les étapes qui ont présidé à l’élaboration d’une base de données d’exemples de structures à subordonnées comparatives du français. Ce travail a été réalisé dans le cadre du projet « Structures à Subordonnées Comparatives du français » (SCF). Piloté par le laboratoire LaTTiCe sous la direction de C. Fuchs, ce projet a réuni des membres de quatre laboratoires français : B. Combettes et A. Kuyumcuyan (ATILF, Nancy), C. Guimier (CRISCO, Caen), N. Fournier et M. Morinièr...

El objetivo de este artículo es plantear algunos desafíos epistémicos para la investigación social en Latinoamérica desde la discusión de la utilidad de la auto-etnografía como una estrategia metodológica. La línea argumentativa seleccionada para alcanzar el aludido objetivo es la siguiente: a) se reseñan algunas de las discusiones sobre el lugar del investigador en las ciencias sociales en la literatura de finales del siglo XX en los países centrales, b) se señalan las principales características de la auto-etnografía, c) se bosqueja (...) una experiencia del uso de la auto-etnografías en una investigación, y finalmente, d) se discuten algunas moralejas y desafíos que se pueden extraer desde lo narrado.The aim of this article is to discuss some epistemic challenges for social research in Latin America since the consideration of the usefulness of auto-ethnography as a methodological strategy. The argumentative strategy selected to achieve the objective is: a) outline some of the discussions on the place of the researcher in social sciences in the literature of the late twentieth century, b) indicates the main characteristics of the auto-ethnography, c) outlines an experience of using auto-ethnographies in research, and finally, d) discuss some conclusions and challenges that can be extracted. (shrink)

D'où vient cette réalité historique particulière qu'est la morale protestante? C'est pour répondre à cette question que les deux premières parties de ce livre sont consacrées à une présentation des sources de l'éthique protestante, celles de la Réforme du 16e siècle (Luther et Calvin), et celles du puritanisme anglais. On découvrira à ce propos le lien étroit du protestantisme et de la modernité, pour le meilleur (démocratie) et pour le pire (utilistarisme). Dès lors, la question de l'avenir d'un tel lien (...) se pose et deux enjeux prioritaires sont ici mis en évidence : comment, dans une société sécularisée, faire valoir l'importance et la valeur d'une morale de conviction théologique? Comment, face à des phénomènes de retour régressif d'une religiosité irrationnelle, maintenir l'exigence d'une relation positive entre foi et raison, sagesse éthique et intelligences? Comment rester à la fois solidaire et critique de notre culture? Enfin l'auteur propose trois engagements spécifiques par quoi le protestantisme pourra prendre utilement sa part au débat contemporain sur la morale nécessaire à notre société actuelle. (shrink)

This book, first published in 1975, provides critical and comprehensive introduction to the philosophy of Leibniz.

:Recent neuroimaging research on disorders of consciousness provides direct evidence of covert consciousness otherwise not detected clinically in a subset of severely brain-injured patients. These findings have motivated strategic development of binary communication paradigms, from which researchers interpret voluntary modulations in brain activity to glean information about patients’ residual cognitive functions and emotions. The discovery of such responsiveness raises ethical and legal issues concerning the exercise of autonomy and capacity for decisionmaking on matters such as healthcare, involvement in research, and (...) end of life. These advances have generated demands for access to the technology against a complex background of continued scientific advancement, questions about just allocation of healthcare resources, and unresolved legal issues. Interviews with professionals whose work is relevant to patients with disorders of consciousness reveal priorities concerning further basic research, legal and policy issues, and clinical considerations. (shrink)

One gains the impression from occasional remarks in the psychiatric literature that there is a feeling of dissatisfaction with the state of flux of the various concepts, serving as tools to help us understand our patients. This paper is submitted as an attempt to point out some of the reasons why psychiatric notions suffer from certain deficiencies. If, for the time being, we set aside the specific psychiatric problems confronting us in our daily work and muse over the structure of (...) our psychological and psychiatric methods of explanation, we might come to the startling conclusion that these methods are quite inadequate. We medical people think in terms of the mechanistic natural sciences, particularly in terms of physics, chemistry and biochemistry. The importance of these auxiliary sciences to our art of healing the sick increases year after year and the outstanding results of chemotherapy, for instance, show how heavily our profession leans on chemistry. Beyond a doubt, the natural sciences are essential to the pursuit and the development of the practice of medicine, nevertheless, the question arises whether psychiatry should be based upon mechanistic methods in approaching our specific material, the human mind. Posed in this fashion, the question implies that psychiatric thinking is basically mechanistic in its general characteristics. I believe that one can prove this thesis on the premise that descriptions and explanations of human behavior are based upon neurological facts and theories. Since the purpose of neurology lies in a different direction than the goal of psychiatry, it was necessary to alter neurological concepts so that they would be more appropriate and fitting to psychic material, and this elaboration upon neurological principles when applied to mental phenomena leads to psychiatric conceptions with inherent deficiencies. (shrink)

May I suggest that there is an angle to the problem of purposeful and non-purposeful behavior which has been overlooked in the recent discussions in this journal, namely, the psychological side of the problem.

In a previous paper it was suggested that specific concepts are needed in the psychological sciences and the basic mental triad was described as a useful tool to further our understanding of mentation. It was stated that the sensori-motor reflex principle cannot describe and explain mental phenomena, because the reflex is basically a mechanistic occurrence, while mental phenomena differ in essence from mechanisms. Since conditioned reflexes can be conceived as sensori-motor reflexes with another, non-mechanistic factor superimposed, similarities and contrasts between (...) reflexes and conditioned reflexes were taken as the material from which one can develop new thoughts about mentation. Reflex shutting of the eyelid, caused by direct contact between cornea and a small, invisible foreign body was compared with and contrasted to shutting the eye before a large, visible object thrusting toward the eye. It was shown that reflexes occur in response to a stimulus after the stimulus has been applied, while conditioned reflexes seem to anticipate the stimulus. This was taken as evidence that conditioned reflexes have a protensive character, have a relationship to the future, which sensori-motor reflexes lack. This difference in time relationship was developed into the statement that the difference between mechanisms and mental phenomena lies in their different relationship to the future. The need for specific concepts to describe mental phenomena stems from the inability of the reflex principle to deal with the protensive tendency of mental phenomena and to fill this need the concept of the basic mental triad was offered. This principle consists of three interdependent, interwoven phases: the triad connects with the past through condensation of some of the subject's past experience into a vaguely formed conglomerate; it connects with the future by projecting the condensed past into the future; the central phase of the triad is the act within the present instant, where a synthesis of past, present and future is accomplished. (shrink)

Measuring time is expressing temporal relationships between objects in terms of spatial relationships with the aid of geometric points, straight lines and clocks. The concepts, point and line, are abstracted from the concrete substratum of sensory experience. This process of abstraction is integrated with the psychological processes which go on within an observer who is reading a clock. The analysis of clock-reading from a psychological point of view points up the necessity to differentiate between two modalities of time: objective time, (...) or, time relationships between objects and which can be expressed in terms of space with point, line and clock; and subjective time, or, the time structure of the human individual in which region point and line are irrelevant concepts. From this irrelevance of point and line it follows that subjective time cannot be measured. (shrink)

Por razones de modificación en la estructura económica y política y ante la evidencia que el Estado fue retrayéndose de sus actividades de regulación y control sobre la vida política y social, comenzaron a crecer las llamadas "organizaciones sin fines de lucro". Nos encontramos con una coincidente proliferación de las ONG de diversos ámbitos durante décadas del '80 y '90 con diferentes objetivos, estructuras de instituirse y relacionarse, formas de relacionarse y subsistir que acompañan y son acompañadas de las normativas (...) tanto institucionales como nacionales. La impronta de fuerza que estas organizaciones sociales, llamadas ONG, y sus particulares dinámicas, no hizo más que estabilizar el imaginario de la omnipotencia y omnipresencia de los organismos internacionales de créditos, debido a que en su accionar también acentuaron las ineficiencias e ineficacias del Estado. La lectura que se intenta hacer es de vislumbrar lo que se escabulle en la construcción de las subjetividades sobre este esfuerzo mancomunado que la sociedad argentina realizó, quizás de forma atomizada y fragmentada, pero igualmente prolífero en expansión de ciertos valores sociales, en un contexto de creciente imaginario colectivo de individualismo, exitismo y consumismo. (shrink)

Although Broad published many books in his lifetime, this volume is unique in presenting some of his most interesting unpublished writings. Divided into five clear sections, the following figures and topics are covered: Autobiography, Hegel and the nature of philosophy, Francis Bacon, Hume's philosophy of the self and belief, F. H. Bradley, The historical development of scientific thought from Pythagoras to Newton, Causation, Change and continuity, Quantitative methods, Poltergeists, Paranormal phenomena. -/- Each section is introduced and placed in context by (...) the editor, Joel Walmsley. The volume also includes an engaging and informative foreword by Simon Blackburn. It will be of great value to those studying and researching the history of twentieth-century philosophy, metaphysics, and the recent history and philosophy of science, as well as anyone interested in Broad's philosophical thought and his place in the history of philosophy. (shrink)

This article is an invited comment on the article by George Mandler in the same issue. It is suggested that the latter contains a series of myths that are popular among psychologists. These are that psychology was fragmented into “schools” in the 1920s and 30s and that this led several writers to declare that it was in a state of crisis. It is said to have overcome this crisis by becoming more eclectic and incorporating the best aspects of the various (...) schools. The author suggests that the reality is very different; there is no evidence to suggest that modern psychology has incorporated different aspects of the various schools. It is just as fragmented as it was in the early part of the 20th century, and the crisis literature has continued to the present day. It is suggested that the myths serve the quasi-religious function of keeping faith in the progress of psychology toward “mature science” alive. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)