Apoptosis is now widely recognized as a common form of cell death and represents a mechanism of cell clearance in many physiological situations where deletion of cells is required. Peptide growth factors, initially characterised as stimulators of cell proliferation, have now been shown to inhibit death in many cell types. Deprivation of growth factors leads to the induction of apoptosis, i.e. condensation of chromatin and degradation in oligonucleosomesized fragments, formation of plasma and nuclear membrane blebs and cell fragmentation into apoptotic (...) bodies which can be taken up by neighbouring cells. Here we discuss the mechanism(;s) by which growth factors may inhibit apoptosis. (shrink)

Across the European research area and beyond, efforts are being mobilized to align research and innovation processes and products with societal values and needs, and to create mechanisms for inclusive priority setting and knowledge production. A central concern is how to foster a culture of “Responsible Research and Innovation” (RRI) among scientists and engineers. This paper focuses on RRI teaching at higher education institutions. On the basis of interviews and reviews of academic and policy documents, it highlights the generic aspects (...) of teaching aimed at invoking a sense of care and societal obligation, and provides a set of exemplary cases of RRI-related teaching. It argues that the Aristotelian concept of phronesis can capture core properties of the objectives of RRI-related teaching activities. Teaching should nurture the students’ capacity in terms of practical wisdom, practical ethics, or administrative ability in order to enable them to act virtuously and responsibly in contexts which are often characterized by uncertainty, contention, and controversy. (shrink)

Across the European research area and beyond, efforts are being mobilized to align research and innovation processes and products with societal values and needs, and to create mechanisms for inclusive priority setting and knowledge production. A central concern is how to foster a culture of “Responsible Research and Innovation” among scientists and engineers. This paper focuses on RRI teaching at higher education institutions. On the basis of interviews and reviews of academic and policy documents, it highlights the generic aspects of (...) teaching aimed at invoking a sense of care and societal obligation, and provides a set of exemplary cases of RRI-related teaching. It argues that the Aristotelian concept of phronesis can capture core properties of the objectives of RRI-related teaching activities. Teaching should nurture the students’ capacity in terms of practical wisdom, practical ethics, or administrative ability in order to enable them to act virtuously and responsibly in contexts which are often characterized by uncertainty, contention, and controversy. (shrink)

The fast–slow paradigm of life history focuses on how individuals grow, mate, and reproduce at different paces. This paradigm can contribute substantially to the field of personality and individual differences provided that it is more strictly based on evolutionary biology than it has been so far. Our study tested the existence of a fast–slow continuum underlying indicators of reproductive effort—offspring output, age at first reproduction, number and stability of sexual partners—in 1,043 outpatients with healthy to severely disordered personalities. Two axes (...) emerged reflecting a double-track pathway to fast strategy, based on restricted and unrestricted sociosexual strategies. When rotated, the fast–slow and sociosexuality axes turned out to be independent. Contrary to expectations, neither somatic effort—investment in status, material resources, social capital, and maintenance/survival—was aligned with reproductive effort, nor a clear tradeoff between current and future reproduction was evident. Finally, we examined the association of LH axes with seven high-order personality pathology traits: negative emotionality, impulsivity, antagonism, persistence-compulsivity, subordination, and psychoticism. Persistent and disinhibited subjects appeared as fast-restricted and fast-unrestricted strategists, respectively, whereas asocial subjects were slow strategists. Associations of LH traits with each other and with personality are far more complex than usually assumed in evolutionary psychology. (shrink)

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra presents an original study of the place and role of the Identity of Indiscernibles in Leibniz's philosophy. The Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles rules out numerically distinct but perfectly similar things; Leibniz derived it from more basic principles and used it to establish important philosophical theses. Rodriguez-Pereyra aims to establish what Leibniz meant by the Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles, what his arguments for and from it were, and to assess those arguments and Leibniz's claims (...) about the Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles. He argues that Leibniz had a very strong version of the principle, according to which no possibilia are intrinsically perfectly similar, where this excludes things that differ in magnitude alone. The book discusses Leibniz's arguments for the Identity of Indiscernibles in the Meditation on the Principle of the Individual, the Discourse on Metaphysics, Notationes Generales, Primary Truths, the letter to Casati of 1689, the correspondence with Clarke, as well as the use of the Identity of Indiscernibles in Leibniz's arguments against the Cartesian conception of the material world, atoms, absolute space and time, the Lockean conception of the mind as a tabula rasa, and freedom of indifference. Rodriguez-Pereyra argues that the Identity of Indiscernibles was a central but inessential principle of Leibniz's philosophy. (shrink)

Minimal Negation is defined within the basic positive relevance logic in the relational ternary semantics: B+. Thus, by defining a number of subminimal negations in the B+ context, principles of weak negation are shown to be isolable. Complete ternary semantics are offered for minimal negation in B+. Certain forms of reductio are conjectured to be undefinable (in ternary frames) without extending the positive logic. Complete semantics for such kinds of reductio in a properly extended positive logic are offered.

Artificial Intelligence-as-a-Service empowers individuals and organisations to access AI on-demand, in either tailored or ‘off-the-shelf’ forms. However, institutional separation between development, training and deployment can lead to critical opacities, such as obscuring the level of human effort necessary to produce and train AI services. Information about how, where, and for whom AI services have been produced are valuable secrets, which vendors strategically disclose to clients depending on commercial interests. This article provides a critical analysis of how AIaaS vendors manipulate the (...) visibility of human labour in AI production based on whether the vendor relies on paid or unpaid labour to fill interstitial gaps. Where vendors are able to occlude human labour in the organisational ‘backstage,’ such as in data preparation, validation or impersonation, they do so regularly, further contributing to ongoing techno-utopian narratives of AI hype. Yet, when vendors must co-produce the AI service with the client, such as through localised AI training, they must ‘lift the curtain’, resulting in a paradoxical situation of needing to both perpetuate dominant AI hype narratives while emphasising AI’s mundane limitations. (shrink)

BackgroundUnderstanding sex and gender in health research can improve the quality of scholarship and enhance health outcomes. Funding agencies and academic journals are two key gatekeepers of knowledge production and dissemination, including whether and how sex/gender is incorporated into health research. Though attention has been paid to key issues and practices in accounting for sex/gender in health funding agencies and academic journals, to date, there has been no systematic analysis documenting whether and how agencies and journals require attention to sex/gender, (...) what conceptual explanations and practical guidance are given for such inclusion, and whether existing practices reflect the reality that sex/gender cannot be separated from other axes of inequality.MethodsOur research systematically examines official statements about sex/gender inclusion from 45 national-level funding agencies that fund health research across 36 countries (covering the regions of the EU and associated countries, North America, and Australia) and from ten top-ranking general health (the top five in “science” and the top five in “social science”) and ten sex- and/or gender-related health journals. We explore the extent to which agencies and journals require inclusion of sex/gender considerations and to what extent existing strategies reflect state of the art understandings of sex/gender, including intersectional perspectives.ResultsThe research highlights the following: (a) there is no consistency in whether sex/gender are mentioned in funding and publishing guidelines; (b) there is wide variation in how sex/gender are conceptualized and how researchers are asked to address the inclusion/exclusion of sex/gender in research; (c) funding agencies tend to prioritize male/female equality in research teams and funding outcomes over considerations of sex/gender in research content and knowledge production; and (d) with very few exceptions, agency and journal criteria fail to recognize the complexity of sex/gender, including the intersection of sex/gender with other key factors that shape health.ConclusionsThe conceptualization and integration of sex/gender needs to better capture the interacting and complex factors that shape health—an imperative that can be informed by an intersectional approach. This can strengthen current efforts to advance scientific excellence in the production and reporting of research. We provide recommendations and supporting questions to strengthen consideration of sex/gender in policies and practices of health journals and funding agencies. (shrink)

In the cubist expression of the early twentieth century, thought begins to play a fundamental role in the creative process. The reason lies in the fact that it is a revolution of thought, even before an aesthetic revolution. It is the basic concept that changes, thanks to the reflection that, unknowingly or not, it takes its moves from the thought of men of the past, including Augustine, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, but also Husserl, Hildebrand, Bergson. This is because every human expression (...) is the result of concepts studied and observed, deepened and challenged. The sculpture was, however, part of the great revolution in art history just as much as painting, due to the work of some artists including Picasso, Boccioni, Brancusi, Archipenko, Gaudier-Brzeska, Lipchitz, Nadelman and Duchamp-Villon.In the particular case of the cubist sculptors, the expressive solutions they adopt are consequent to a new way of implying the world and the intellectualistic phenomena that accompany its evolution. Keywords: Cubism; Phenomenology of Cubism; Cubist painting; Cubist sculpture. (shrink)

A central diagnostic and anecdotal feature ofautismis difficulty with socialcommunication. We take the position that communication is a two-way,intersubjectivephenomenon—as described by thedouble empathy problem—and offer uprelevance theory(a cognitive account of utterance interpretation) as a means of explaining such communication difficulties. Based on a set of proposed heuristics for successful and rapid interpretation of intended meaning, relevance theory positions communication as contingent on shared—and, importantly,mutuallyrecognized—“relevance.” Given that autistic and non-autistic people may have sometimes markedly different embodied experiences of the world, we (...) argue that what is most salient to each interlocutor may be mismatched. Relevance theory would predict that where this salient information is not (mutually) recognized or adjusted for, mutual understanding may be more effortful to achieve. This paper presents the findings from a small-scale, linguistic ethnographic study of autistic communication featuring eight core autistic participants. Each core autistic participant engaged in three naturalistic conversations around the topic of loneliness with: (1) a familiar, chosen conversation partner; (2) a non-autistic stranger and (3) an autistic stranger. Relevance theory is utilized as a frame for the linguistic analysis of the interactions. Mutual understanding was unexpectedly high across all types of conversation pairings. In conversations involving two autistic participants, flow, rapport and intersubjective attunement were significantly increased and in three instances, autistic interlocutors appeared to experience improvements in their individual communicative competence contrasted with their other conversations. The findings have the potential to guide future thinking about how, in practical terms, communication between autistic and non-autistic people in both personal and public settings might be improved. (shrink)

This book is a collection of fictionalized case studies of everyday ethical dilemmas and challenges, encountered in the process of conducting global health research in places where the effects of political and economic inequality are particularly evident. It is a training tool to fill the gap between research ethics guidelines and their implementation "on the ground." The cases focus on "relational" ethics: ethical actions and ideas that continuously emerge through relations with others, rather than being determined by bioethics regulation. They (...) are based on stories and experiences collected by a group of social anthropologists who have worked with leading transnational medical research organizations across Africa in the past decade. Accompanied by guidelines, discussion questions and selected further readings, the book provides a flexible resource for training and self-study for people engaged in health research with, universities, international collaborative sites and NGOs and for everyone interested in the realities of global health research today.". (shrink)

Immigration reform is a highly complex and multifaceted task with significant economic, political and religio-cultural repercussions thereby bringing tremendous ethical challenges and implications. This article explores the possible contribution of modern Catholic Social Teaching in addressing the ethical challenges of immigration reform, particularly in the United States, by examining key themes that could address critical issues in the current debate on immigration reform and arguing how an ethic of risk which, the author submits, runs through the key themes of Catholic (...) Social Teaching explored in this paper, could then serve as an approach in articulating how Christian discipleship could foreground citizenship in the context of immigration. (shrink)

THE SYMBOLIC FUNCTION is an original and provocative attempt to explain human symbol making and to develop an understanding of language and cognition usually held apart by the separate movements of philosophy and psychoanalysis. This book defines a new discipline and a new cooperation.

In most domains of human life, we are willing to accept that there are experts with greater knowledge and competencies that distinguish them from non-experts or laypeople. Despite this fact, the very recognition of expertise curiously becomes more controversial in the case of “moral experts”. Do moral experts exist? And, if they indeed do, are there ethical reasons for us to follow their advice? Likewise, can emerging technological developments broaden our very concept of moral expertise? In this article, we begin (...) by arguing that the objections that have tried to deny the existence (and convenience) of moral expertise are unsatisfactory. After that, we show that people have ethical reasons to ask for a piece of moral advice in daily life situations. Then, we argue that some Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems can play an increasing role in human morality by becoming moral experts. Some AI-based moral assistants can qualify as artificial moral experts and we would have good ethical reasons to use them. (shrink)

Realising the societal gains from publicly funded health and medical research requires a model for a reflexive evaluation precedent for the societal impact of research. This research explores UK Research Excellence Framework evaluators’ values and opinions and assessing societal impact, prior to the assessment taking place. Specifically, we discuss the characteristics of two different impact assessment extremes – the “quality-focused” evaluation and “societal impact-focused” evaluation. We show the wide range of evaluator views about impact, and that these views could be (...) conceptually reflected in a range of different positions along a conceptual evaluation scale. We describe the characteristics of these extremes in detail, and discuss the different beliefs evaluators had which could influence where they positioned themselves along the scale. These decisions, we argue, when considered together, form a dominant definition of societal impact that influences the direction of its evaluation by the panel. (shrink)

El daño ambiental ha despertado el interés de la doctrina en Colombia, aunque aún no se aborda con rigor y profundidad. La razón, entre otras, es la omisión de los avances que ha dado el derecho comparado, donde la concepción del rol de las instituciones jurídicas va hasta una comprensión integral del daño a partir de la alteración funcional de los sistemas. Existe hoy cierto consenso respecto al deber ser del régimen de responsabilidad aplicable a esta noción integral del daño (...) ambiental, capaz de hacer frente a los componentes del medio natural y a todos los que lo conforman. El libro busca aportar al estudio del daño ambiental desde los avances antes descritos en la materia. (shrink)

Gorgias’ On Not-Being survives only in two divergent summaries. Diels–Kranz's classic edition prints the better-preserved version that appears in Sextus’ Aduersus Mathematicos. Yet, in recent years there has been rising interest in a second summary that survives as part of the anonymous De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia. The text of MXG is more difficult; it contains substantial lacunae that often make it much harder to make grammatical let alone philosophical sense of. As Alexander Mourelatos reports, one manuscript has a scribal note (...) that reads: "The original contains many errors; no one should blame me; I just copy what I see.". The treatise's state of preservation has aptly prompted Michael Gagarin to liken it to a black hole: "something we cannot see directly but know must exist because of certain effects it has on other objects.". (shrink)

This article discusses the nature of copyright as a fundamental right. After studying the two faces of copyright, both economic and moral, I analyze whether copyright should be seen as part of the freedom of artistic and scientific creation (article 20.1.b Spanish Constitution) or as part of the general property right (article 33). Finally, I explore the possibility of applying these conclusions to other intellectual property rights (related rights, patents, trademarks, etc.). This discussion is not trivial. The weight of copyright (...) in case of conflict with other rights (such as privacy and freedom of speech) depends on the nature of copyright as a fundamental right or not. (shrink)

The letters of the learned and indomitable Lady Anne Bacon, mother of the philosopher Francis Bacon, are made accessible for the first time in this edition. Bringing together nearly two hundred letters, scattered in repositories throughout the world, her correspondence sheds fresh light not only on the activities of early modern elite women, but also on well-known Elizabethan figures, including her children, her privy councillor relatives, such as William Cecil, Lord Burghley, and controversial figures, including the Earl of Essex. Translations (...) of Lady Anne's frequent use of Latin, Greek and Hebrew reveal the impact of her humanist education on her correspondence and a substantial introductory chapter allows a detailed picture of Anne's life to emerge through her surviving letters. (shrink)

Las trayectorias del arte caribeño, luego de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, experimentan profundas transformaciones en sus prácticas creativas y modos de comprensión cultural. Las complejas realidades sociales y políticas en las islas del Caribe hispano condujeron a un punto de giro en los procesos regionales, una transformación del campo del arte y replanteamientos de los discursos periféricos desde las manifestaciones, los temas de interés y el rol del artista en la sociedad. La fotografía, y especialmente aquella procedente de espacios periféricos (...) en las lógicas internacionales del arte, aportaron los iconos más contestatarios del momento. Los símbolos culturales de una nueva voz, que responde a un pensamiento emancipatorio y descolonizador, se expresan en la construcción de un discurso visual de paradigmas éticos y libertarios. Los lenguajes más renovadores de la época apelan a una base fotográfica de trasfondo por la relación entre la inmediatez y la pregnancia de la imagen, o la inherente reproductibilidad que propicia una función comunicativa más efectiva. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es realizar una historización del sistema sanitario de Neuquén, concretamente atendiendo a los programas de salud aplicados en esta provincia desde su surgimiento hasta el año 2020. En este marco, en primer lugar, me enfocaré en los lineamientos políticos que definieron las bases ideológicas de las políticas públicas llevadas a cabo en la atención sanitaria neuquina, y, en segundo lugar, examinaré las variables estadísticas publicadas por el sistema de salud provincial referidas a las condiciones materiales (...) de atención médica de la población en general, y de las mujeres indígenas mapuce en particular. Para efectuar dicho abordaje, analizaré específicamente la localidad de Las Coloradas. -/- . (shrink)

In this paper, we explore a new perspective on digital humanism, emphasizing the centrality of multi-stakeholder dialogues and a bottom-up approach to surfacing stakeholder values. This approach starkly contrasts with existing frameworks, such as the Vienna Manifesto's top-down digital humanism, which hinges on pre-established first principles. Our approach provides a more flexible, inclusive framework that captures a broader spectrum of ethical considerations, particularly those pertinent to the digital realm. We apply our model to two case studies, comparing the insights generated (...) with those derived from a utilitarian perspective and the Vienna Manifesto's approach. The findings underscore the enhanced effectiveness of our approach in revealing additional, often overlooked stakeholder values, not typically encapsulated by traditional top-down methodologies. Furthermore, this paper positions our digital humanism approach as a powerful tool for framing ethics-by-design, by promoting a narrative that empowers and centralizes stakeholders. As a result, it paves the way for more nuanced, comprehensive ethical considerations in the design and implementation of digital technologies, thereby enriching the existing literature on digital ethics and setting a promising agenda for future research. (shrink)

First published in 1990. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

We are inhabitants of a culture that knows how to speak but not how to listen. Against a tradition that has endorsed the power of discourse, where warring monologues are mistaken for genuine dialogue, Gemma Corradi Fiumara examines and reveals the other side of language - listening.

In the modern age a specific lexicon has arisen to defend liberty and equality. This vocabulary has also been employed to defend misogynist positions and to justify the inequality between women and men. One clear example is Rousseau’s explanation of the sexual division of labour: women “naturally” decide to remain at home and look after the children while the men search for the resources necessary for the group. In this manner he intends to explain the relegation of women to the (...) private and domestic sphere. In the twentieth century this division entered in crisis due to the critical work of many feminist thinkers and groups. Among these Betty Friedan, Kate Millett and the Radicalesbians stand out. Their analyses put in question this division of spheres, their limits, their nature and their acceptance in society. Moreover they show the political scope and the power which underlies this division of labour, as well as the liberating possibilities resulting from the criticism of and the disobedience to the same. Betty Friedan denounces the social obstacles faced by women who wish to work outside the home and highlights the devastating consequences for the female psyche. Kate Millett puts in evidence the political system which oppresses women and how it colonises personal and intimate spaces. The Radicalesbians group underlines the freedom realised by woman-identified women. These feminists offer open and rich interpretations which are relevant in the present. (shrink)

The goal of this piece is to put some pressure on Brian O’Shaughnessy’s claim that perceptual experiences are necessarily mental processes. The author targets two motivations behind the development of that view. First, O’Shaughnessy resorts to pure conceptual analysis to argue that perceptual experiences are processes. The author argues that this line of reasoning is inconclusive. Secondly, he repeatedly invokes a thought experiment concerning the total freeze of a subject’s experiential life. Even if this case is coherent, however, it does (...) not show that perceptual experiences are processes. (shrink)

First published in 1990. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Aunque la problemática de los daños ambientales ha atraído el interés sustancial de profesionales y académicos de diversas disciplinas, los motivos que impulsan esas prácticas han recibido poca atención en la literatura jurídica colombiana. Especialmente desde la perspectiva de la responsabilidad. Este capítulo presenta unas reflexiones preliminares de la responsabilidad por daños ambientales, para introducir el estudio de diversos temas, hacia una construcción doctrinal enmarcada no sólo en el deber de evitar el progresivo deterioro ambiental causado por el hombre, sino (...) para salvaguardar las especies vivas que habitan y habitarán este planeta, así como el legado que le quedará a las generaciones venideras. (shrink)

As it is well known, in the forties of the past century, Curry proved that in any logic S closed under Modus Ponens, uniform substitution of propositional variables and the Contraction Law, the naïve Comprehension axiom trivializes S in the sense that all propositions are derivable in S plus CA. Not less known is the fact that, ever since Curry published his proof, theses and rules weaker than W have been shown to cause the same effect as W causes. Among (...) these, the Contraction rule or the Modus Ponens axiom, for example, are to be noted. But, moreover, as Brady has proved, even the Generalized Modus Ponens axiom or the Generalized Contraction rule give rise to “Curry’s Paradox” under the same circumstances as W does. In some previous work by us, “weak relevant model structures” are defined on “weak relevant matrices” by generalizing Brady’s model structure MCL built upon Meyer’s Crystal matrix CL. We have proved that wr-ms only verify logics with the “depth relevance condition”. The aim of this paper is to show how to falsify gMPa and gRW in certain wr-ms. In particular, it will be shown that gMPa is falisfied in any wr-ms and gRW in any wr-ms verifying Routley and Meyer’s basic positive logic B+. (shrink)

There is little consensus on what artificial intelligence (AI) systems may or may not embrace. Although this may point to multiplicity of interpretations and backgrounds, a lack of conceptual clarity could thwart the development of common ground around the concept among researchers, practitioners and users of AI and pave the way for misinterpretation and abuse of the concept. This article argues that one of the effective ways to delineate the concept of AI is to compare and contrast it with human (...) intelligence. In doing so, the article broaches the unique capabilities of humans and AI in relation to one another (human and machine tacit knowledge), as well as two types of AI systems: one that goes beyond human intelligence and one that is necessarily and inherently tied to it. It finally highlights how humans and AI can augment their capabilities and intelligence through synergistic human–AI interactions (i.e., human-augmented AI and augmented human intelligence), resulting in hybrid intelligence, and concludes with a future-looking research agenda. (shrink)