The transport of messenger RNAs (mRNAs) from the nucleus to cytoplasm is an essential step in the gene expression program of all eukaryotes. Recent technological advances in the areas of RNA‐labeling, microscopy, and sequencing are leading to novel insights about mRNA biogenesis and export. This includes quantitative single molecule imaging (SMI) of RNA molecules in live cells, which is providing knowledge of the spatial and temporal dynamics of the export process. As this information becomes available, it leads to new questions, (...) the reinterpretation of previous findings, and revised models of mRNA export. In this review, we will briefly highlight some of these recent findings and discuss how live cell SMI approaches may be used to further our current understanding of mRNA export and gene expression. (shrink)

This chapter serves as an introduction to the collected volume. In the first section, we aim to provide background on important themes in social egalitarianism and to set the context for understanding which significant questions the chapters in this book pose and attempt to answer. In this section we focus especially on what could be said to characterize socially egalitarian relationships, on which relationships are of concern, and on what might make social egalitarianism distinct. In the second section, we provide (...) a brief explanation of the structure of the book and each of its chapters. (shrink)

Many social gradients in health appear steeper for men than for women. I refer to this as the “Steepness Puzzle.” This paper explores the ethical implications of this Puzzle. First, it identifies potential explanations for the Steepness Puzzle, including methodological problems. Second, it highlights two harms associated with the methodological explanation: the consequences of biased epistemic practices and the marginalization of women. It also demonstrates how attempts to flatten the gradients in health could disproportionately favor men or reinforce troubling gendered (...) norms. Finally, I suggest ways to address the methodological problems underlying the Puzzle. (shrink)

Plotinus represent a constant reference in all of Šestov's philosophy. For the Russian philosopher Plotinus is, on the one hand, the one who thought up thesynthesis of Greek philosophy, on the other, the one who first broke with that same tradition precisely when it was at its peak. However, Šestov does lift from the Enneadi certain passages which he marries - as if in a sort of contrapuntal rewriting exercise - to others in which Plotinus seems to contradict himself. What (...) interests Šestov are precisely those discontinuities in the thought of the last great philosopher of old in an anti-Greek function. That of Šestov is once again a marked criticism of Rationalism as creator of an autonomous set of ethics that he judges according to an intellect which everything is subject to. Autonomousethics, affirms Šestov, is a fruit of Greek schools of thought to the extent that it shows distrust for what is mutable, unforeseen and arbitrary, of everything which, in short, is irrational, as it is not inserted in the One/All necessitating, justifying, regulating. In the alternative between Athens and Jerusalem, between the Rationalism and the Bible, Šestov opts to assume a stance, in no uncertain terms, on the side Jerusalem, taking with him the Plotinus of the awakening andheading towards a greater reality capable of overturning the throne occupied for too long by reason. That Plotinus who at a certain point was obliged to say thatin this other dimension "the intellect before God represents a reckless, ungodly apostate" (VI.9.5). That Plotinus, who ultimately, in one of those most particularmoments, realized that he was predestined for something loftier with respect to the world of evil and death. (shrink)

What is a just way of spending public resources for health and health care? Several significant answers to this question are under debate. Public spending could aim to promote greater equality in health, for example, or maximize the health of the population, or provide the worst off with the best possible health. Another approach is to aim for each person to have "enough" so that her health or access to health care does not fall under a critical level. This latter (...) approach is called sufficientarian. Sufficientarian approaches to distributive justice are intuitively appealing, but require further analysis and assessment. What exactly is sufficiency? Why do we need it? What does it imply for the just distribution of health or healthcare? This volume offers fresh perspectives on these critical questions. Philosophers, bioethicists, health policy-makers, and health economists investigate sufficiency and its application to health and health care in fifteen original contributions. (shrink)

Il saggio indaga il rapporto fra impresa e società fra ottocento e novecento così come si esprime nelle società per azioni e nelle imprese cooperative. Nella seconda metà dell’Ottocento i codici di commercio europei introducono la deregolamentazione delle public company e codificano per la prima volta l’impresa cooperativa. Entrambe le novità rappresentano una riposta ai problemi centrali di quella fase dello sviluppo industriale: il finanziamento delle iniziative economiche, la questione sociale e la governance dell’impresa. Si delineano così due forme di (...) impresa, la public company e l’impresa cooperativa, che per tutto il Novecento alimenteranno il dibattito sul rapporto fra società e impresa e contribuiranno alla crescita delle economie occidentali. (shrink)

In 1932, John von Neumann argued for the equivalence of the thermodynamic entropy and −Trρlnρ, since known as the von Neumann entropy. Meir Hemmo and Orly R. Shenker recently challenged this argument by pointing out an alleged discrepancy between the two entropies in the single-particle case, concluding that they must be distinct. In this article, their argument is shown to be problematic as it allows for a violation of the second law of thermodynamics and is based on an incorrect calculation (...) of the von Neumann entropy. (shrink)

Contemporary international migration is directly related to the construction of the nation-state. The variations in this migration are multiple, depending on the type of mobility, the territories and the characteristics of the people who practice it. One kind of migration that has been particularly important at the end of the twentieth century and so far in the twenty-first century is that of minors who migrate without being accompanied by their parents. The legal definitions, bureaucratic practices and rights of these minors-turned-migrants (...) vary across European states and in the international literature. This paper aims to analyse the terminology used colloquially in the media and academically to refer to this group of people. In the early days of the phenomenon, the acronym MENA (unaccompanied migrant minors) has been the most common in Spain. It was intended to be a “neutral” term used in the legal sphere and migration studies. Still, in recent times, MENA has become more than a descriptive category. It has become a way of criminalising a group of young people who are in national territory and come from another country (usually an African country and, especially, a Maghreb country). However, not everything is determined by the circumstances surrounding us or our lives as social beings. Social pressure, with its narrative, cannot mean leaving aside history, legal culture, and learning. We need a new language to talk about this group of people. Currently, the negative connotation hides the most human aspect of this condition; the term “MENA” is a banner to mystify a fundamental fact: we are talking about children and adolescents who, not being able to count on the protection of an adult or family member, are condemned to social exclusion. This article approaches the migrant child as a critical figure who embodies the paradox of humanitarian reasoning, which is also a legal and political paradox, encapsulating the tension between structural rejection and the individual capacity of the human subject. By focusing on the theoretically productive role of minors without parental guardianship as subjects of ethnographic examination, this paper aims to understand better how current anthropological knowledge redefines the concepts of childhood, adulthood, and migration. The first part of this paper focuses on examining the terminologies used at the European and international levels, with their respective social implications. The second part focuses on the Spanish case, with the different impacts the term produces at the local level. The third and final part focuses on the terminology of refugee children and opens the discussion on scapegoating in Spain. (shrink)

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have rippled across the United States’ (US) agri-food system, illuminating considerable issues. US seed systems, which form the foundation of food production, were particularly marked by panic-buying and heightened safety precautions in seed fulfillment facilities which precipitated a commercial seed sector overwhelmed and unprepared to meet consumer demand for seed, especially for non-commercial growers. In response, prominent scholars have emphasized the need to support both formal (commercial) and informal (farmer- and gardener-managed) seed systems to (...) holistically aid growers across various contexts. However, limited attention to non-commercial seed systems in the US, coupled with a lack of consensus surrounding what exactly a resilient seed system looks like, first warrants an exploration into the strengths and vulnerabilities of existing seed systems. This paper seeks to examine how growers navigated challenges in seed sourcing and how this may reflect the resilience of the seed systems to which they belong. Using a mixed-methods approach which includes data from online surveys (n = 158) and semi-structured interviews (n = 31) with farmers and gardeners in Vermont, findings suggest that growers were able to adapt – albeit through different mechanisms depending on their positionality (commercial or non-commercial) within the agri-food system. However, systemic challenges emerged including a lack of access to diverse, locally adapted, and organic seeds. Insights from this study illuminate the importance of creating linkages between formal and informal seed systems in the US to help growers respond to manifold challenges, as well as promote a robust and sustainable stock of planting material. (shrink)

This volume brings together a collection of ten original essays which present new analyses of social and relational equality in philosophy and political theory. The essays analyze the nature of social equality and its relationship with justice and with politics.

What kind of equality should we value and why? Current debate centres around whether distributive equality is valuable. However, it is not the only (potentially) morally significant form of equality. David Miller and T. M. Scanlon have emphasised the importance of social equality—a strongly egalitarian notion distinct from distributive equality, and which cannot be reduced to a concern for overall welfare or the welfare of the worst-off. However, as debate tends to focus on distribution, social equality has been neglected and (...) we do not have a clear understanding of what it is and why it might be valuable. This paper aims to address this gap. (shrink)

El presente trabajo conceptualiza la categoría de sufrimiento o dolor social desde un enfoque relacional y constructivista sobre la vida social y escolar. Particularmente, focalizamos en los desarrollos del psicoanálisis de Silvia Bleichmar, la sociología figuracional de Norbert Elias y el interaccionismo simbólico de David Le Breton. Sus perspectivas poseen una serie de puntos de confluencia: a) interpretan al sufrimiento como una emoción que imbrica procesos psico y sociogenéticos; b) conciben que el dolor remite a la relación entre cuerpo y (...) subjetividad; c) sostienen que el debilitamiento o la ausencia de lazos sociales significativos se encuentra en la base de las experiencias de padecimiento. (shrink)

Abū al-Ma’ālī Sadr al-Dīn Muhammad b. Ishāq al-Qūnawī nacque probabilmente a Konya nel 605/1209 e morì nel 673/1274. L’influenza che Ibn al-’Arabī esercitò su Qūnawī fu decisiva e lo _shaykh al-akbar_ riservò questa questa particolare formazione esclusivamente a lui, forse proprio perché il compito del suo erede spirituale e interprete era già stato “ previsto”. In questo intervento tracceremo uno dei punti fondamentali del pensiero di Qūnawī, basandoci sulla prima epistola del carteggio che si concentra proprio sulla questione del _rapporto (...) tra conoscenza filosofica e illuminazione divina_, questione che si ritrova nell’opera del nostro sufi e che lo contraddistingue all’interno del pensiero sufi in generale, collocandolo nella scuola ibnarabiana. Abū al-Ma‘ālī Sadr al-Dīn Muhammad b. Ishāq al-Qūnawī was born probably in Konya in 605/1209 and died in 673/1274. The influence that Ibn al-‘Arabī exerted on Qūnawī was decisive and the _shaykh al-akbar_ reserved this intense education and this particular training exclusively for him, perhaps precisely because the task of his spiritual heir and interpreter had already been “foreseen”. In this intervention we will trace one of the fundamental points of Qūnawī’s thought, relying on the first epistle of the correspondence that focuses precisely on the question of the _relationship between philosophical knowledge and divine illumination_, a question that is found throughout the work of our Sufi and that it distinguishes it within Sufi thought in general, placing it within the Ibnarabian school. (shrink)

In Europe the elderly population is projected to increase from 18.5% (93.9 million) in 2014 to 28.7% (149.1 million) by 2080. In the USA it is estimated that by the year 2030 more than 20% of the population will be aged 65 years or over. This specific population is at high risk of unrecognised or untreated psychiatric illnesses and suicide. It is well known that completed suicide rate increases with age in both men and women. Although elderly people attempt suicide (...) less often than other age groups, they show a higher completion rate. Generally the methods chosen by elderly are more lethal, the intent is more serious, they are more determined and they show fewer warning sign than the younger population. A recent systematic review and meta-analysis of psychosocial intervention following self-harm in adults found that cognitive behavioural therapy was the most effective in these patients. Unfortunately there have been few reported trials of other potentially effective interventions. Because the scientific literature on psychosocial suicide prevention interventions in the elderly is still scant we decided to conduct a mini-review in order to take stock of the situation. Studies were identified through electronic searches of the Cochrane library, MEDLINE, Scopus and Web of Science databases. PRISMA guidelines were followed and only 7 articles met the inclusion criteria. No firm conclusions can be drawn about this topic because there is still little data and studies used inconsistent outcome measures and designs. Nonetheless, the existing data suggests that psychosocial interventions are promising. (shrink)

Much research is currently being conducted on health care practitioners' experiences of moral distress, especially the experience of nurses. What moral distress is, however, is not always clearly delineated and there is some debate as to how it should be defined. This article aims to help to clarify moral distress. My methodology consists primarily of a conceptual analysis, with especial focus on Andrew Jameton's influential description of moral distress. I will identify and aim to resolve two sources of confusion about (...) moral distress: the compound nature of a narrow definition of distress which stipulates a particular cause, i.e. moral constraint, and the distinction drawn between moral dilemma and moral distress, which implies that the two are mutually exclusive. In light of these concerns, I argue that the definition of moral distress should be revised so that moral constraint should not be a necessary condition of moral distress, and that moral conflict should be included as a potential cause of distress. Ultimately, I claim that moral distress should be understood as a specific psychological response to morally challenging situations such as those of moral constraint or moral conflict, or both. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) applied to the legal domain is gaining ground. AI is argued to be particularly helpful with labour-intensive activities and repetitive tasks. Amongst the various AI solutions, ChatGPT has gathered momentum and its acclaimed advantages are, amongst others, document generation and contract review. This paper wishes to assess the effectiveness of two chatbots in contract drafting. To this aim, ChatGPT (by OpenAI) and Gemini (by Google) are prompted to write two supply contracts each, the first one written in (...) English according to the laws of England and Wales, and the other one still written in English, but according to the laws of the Republic of Italy. The paper finds that each contract pair generated by the AI solutions is identical, thus disregarding legal-system specificities and language conventions. Therefore, the drafts present a number of fallacies, either because they are incomplete, or because they include clauses that are redundant or inapplicable in a given legal system. The paper claims that human intervention and supervision are necessary to tackle the shortcomings generated by AI, at least as far as contract generation is concerned and with regard to the two chatbots addressed. (shrink)

Se analizará el papel de la iglesia católica como detentora de poder en el siglo X, sus íntimas relaciones con la forma de construcción del poder político, permitiendo su fortalecimiento en un tiempo de fragmentación territorial. Se perseguirá la interpretación de la interrelación poder temporal-esp..

The adaptation-by-binding account and the arousal-biased competition model suggest that emotional arousal increases binding effects for transient links between stimuli and responses. Two highly-powered, pre-registered experiments tested whether transient stimulus-response bindings are stronger for high versus low arousing stimuli. Emotional words were presented in a sequential prime-probe design in which stimulus relation, response relation, and stimulus arousal were orthogonally manipulated. In Experiment 1 (N = 101), words with high and low arousal levels were presented individually in prime and probe displays. (...) In Experiment 2 (N = 170), a high arousing affective word was presented simultaneously with a neutral word during the prime display; in the subsequent probe display, either the arousing or the neutral word repeated or a different high versus low arousal word was shown. Data from both experiments did not demonstrate a modulation of SRBR effects by stimulus arousal and SRBR effects were of equal magnitude for word stimuli of high and low arousal levels. These null results are not in line with binding accounts that hypothesise a modulatory influence of emotional arousal on perception-action binding. (shrink)

This article explores safety and politics of space in two ways. First, it reviews research on women’s fear and calls for safer cities, identifying four contradictions in the geography of fear discourse. Second, it elaborates on how including various forms of fear may repoliticize the contemporary depoliticized and co-opted safety discussion by focusing on sexist and racist threats rather than exclusively on the white middle classes. Here, threats to veiled Muslim women and their experiences in public spaces are, in particular, (...) emphasized as exemplifying fears that are neglected in the safety debate. The article concludes that, rather than the whole safety issue being dismissed as ‘neoliberal’, there is an urgent need to strengthen the analysis of power and illuminate experiences of pain and fear in sexist and racist violence. (shrink)

This article conveys some of the findings from a hermeneutic-phenomenological study on lived experiences of school failure. The informants were students in Swedish senior high schools and teenagers in Swedish juvenile institutions. Contrary to the common belief that school failure is related to low grades or failing exams, the students’ descriptions of lived experiences of failure had little to do with intellectual shortcomings. The students’ interpretation of my research question did not encompass cognitive deficiencies. They rarely spoke of failure to (...) understand, or failure to meet scholastic demands. Instead, the students offered stories about failure to behave according to expectations and the way in which they experienced their teachers’ reactions to this ‘deviant’ behaviour. Thus, the question of school failure did not revolve around the students’ cognitive knowledge and proficiency – or lack of thereof – but around the hidden curriculum. The feelings the students lived through while experiencing failure included lack of trust, confidence, belief, joyfulness, patience, hope, and serenity. The study has moral implications for pedagogical practice and the formative relationship between teachers and students. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology , Volume 12, Special Edition May 2012. (shrink)

As Malinowsky states, myth is closely related to rite, presenting the social and moral values that rite asserts in each cyclical repetition. Rite marks the threshold between the sacred and profane, allowing access to myth as an art form, as a narrative expression both of the sacred – in the extension of meaning Emile Durkheim introduced with the term ‘collective consciousness’ – and of the ‘collective unconscious’ as Jung defined it. If it is true that the rite of passage to (...) the adult world, the initiation rite, is one of the most archaic rites in aiming to protect society against the risk of cultural innovation inherent in the younger generations, then it is legitimate to ask what our new myths are regarding education. When technology accelerates the mechanisms eroding collective memory, which rites renew educational myths in everyday practice? When technology dematerializes the devices on which rite and its inherent techniques of control are based, what new forms does mythological narration assume? What roles do new media play in creating a direct channel between the collective consciousness and individual experience, between the nervous system and our environment, enveloping individuals in the telematic embrace Roy Ascott described in 2003, and which not only explains the concept of the Global Village that Marshall McLuhan introduced in 1966, but also delineates the space – time of students in contemporary learning processes? Reading the contemporary educational system through the lens of myth and rite, where new technologies play a central role, allows us to follow a path that traces the progressive impact of media on cognitive processes from the initial emergence of the concept ‘collective consciousness’ onwards, and that offers one of the most interesting interpretations of the ‘open school’ experience in Derrick de Kerkhove’s concept of ‘connective intelligence’ (analysed in my Ph.D. thesis). But myth also allows us to observe those cracks, breaks and discontinuities that mark the places in which contemporary knowledge is created, which is why we find Nietzsche (who dedicated much of his work to myth), Michel Foucault and Ivan Illich at the centre of International Debate on Education for the last decade due to their critical approach to institutions. (shrink)