BackgroundDescriptive studies examining publication rates and citation counts demonstrate a geographic skew toward high-income countries (HIC), and research from low- or middle-income countries (LMICs) is generally underrepresented. This has been suggested to be due in part to reviewers’ and editors’ preference toward HIC sources; however, in the absence of controlled studies, it is impossible to assert whether there is bias or whether variations in the quality or relevance of the articles being reviewed explains the geographic divide. This study synthesizes the (...) evidence from randomized and controlled studies that explore geographic bias in the peer review process.MethodsA systematic review was conducted to identify research studies that explicitly explore the role of geographic bias in the assessment of the quality of research articles. Only randomized and controlled studies were included in the review. Five databases were searched to locate relevant articles. A narrative synthesis of included articles was performed to identify common findings.ResultsThe systematic literature search yielded 3501 titles from which 12 full texts were reviewed, and a further eight were identified through searching reference lists of the full texts. Of these articles, only three were randomized and controlled studies that examined variants of geographic bias. One study found that abstracts attributed to HIC sources elicited a higher review score regarding relevance of the research and likelihood to recommend the research to a colleague, than did abstracts attributed to LIC sources. Another study found that the predicted odds of acceptance for a submission to a computer science conference were statistically significantly higher for submissions from a “Top University.” Two of the studies showed the presence of geographic bias between articles from “high” or “low” prestige institutions.ConclusionsTwo of the three included studies identified that geographic bias in some form was impacting on peer review; however, further robust, experimental evidence is needed to adequately inform practice surrounding this topic. Reviewers and researchers should nonetheless be aware of whether author and institutional characteristics are interfering in their judgement of research. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship of mourning and the gift in the work of Jacques Derrida. I argue that mourning is not a Derridean gift, but mourning does open us to the gift. Reading the works of Aristotle, Cicero, and Kierkegaard on friendship and love to the dead in the wake of Derrida’s Politics of Friendship makes this relation among mourning and the gift apparent for he presents mourning as the opening to a democracy to-come whose logic is the gift. (...) Through these accounts, I maintain that in preparing us for the gift, mourning the dead other can help us to relate better with the living other in ethical, political, and ontological terms. (shrink)

This is a phenomenological description of what is happening when we experience the death of another that interprets surviving or living on after such death by employing the term event. This term of art from phenomenology and hermeneutics is used to describe a disruptive and transformative experience of singularity. I maintain that the death of the other is an experience of an event because such death is unpredictable or without a horizon of expectation, excessive or without any principle of sufficient (...) reason, and transformative or a death of the world itself. (shrink)

Since Heidegger, at least, the theme of the event has become a focal point of current debate in continental philosophy. While scholars recognize the important contributions that Jacques Derrida has made to this debate, the significance of his considerations of the death of the other for his conception of the event has not yet been fully appreciated. This essay focuses on Derrida’s efforts to develop the notion of the event in reference to the death of the other through his engagement (...) with Paul Celan in “Rams—Between Two Infinities, The Poem.” I argue that Derrida’s approach results in a three-fold contribution to the debate about the character of the event. Derrida turns to one of Celan’s poems in an effort to find the kind of speech that attests to the event in its singularity, and in this turn, he develops not only the structure of the event’s appearance in the death of the world when the other dies but also the ethical impetus that accompanies this event of the death of the other, namely a call for workless mourning. Through Derrida’s contribution, we learn that the concern for the event not only includes novel approaches to ontology but also attempts to weave together ontological, ethical, as well as existential concerns. (shrink)

Editors’ Introduction: Radical Philosophy and Politics Amid the Climate Crisis and the Coronavirus Pandemic for Radical Philosophy Review.

Persuasion is communication that has the potential to change the recipient’s behavior. War can be very persuasive. However, fighting is not persuasive unless it carries a persuasive message—one that changes the enemy’s behavior. Thus, the battle to persuade the enemy can be more important than the battle to destroy the enemy. Superior force of arms can lose to superior persuasion.

Søren Kierkegaard used his literary, philosophical, and theological voice to reintroduce Christianity to Christendom. In this effort, he repeatedly uses the Apostle Paul's first letter to the church in Corinth. Though some have noted the importance of 1 Corinthians for Kierkegaard, they have not explained this importance nor this letter's role in Kierkegaard's corpus. This essay seeks to fill this gap in Kierkegaard scholarship by explaining the role this letter plays in Kierkegaard's Climacean authorship. Paul's battle with the Corinthian view (...) of wisdom and Kierkegaard's battle with Hegelian philosophy, which seeks to go beyond faith through speculative thinking, share similarities that engender both their works. In their battles with their respective foes, both develop a Christocentric epistemology that displaces the import of human understanding and cognitive content with the person Jesus who inverts their opponents' epistemic values by salvifically redefining wisdom and knowledge. This epistemology of a different kind is an offense, foolishness, and absurd to their opponents because it cannot be intellectually grasped by human understanding, but rather in and through the passion of faith, which places the individual in relation with Jesus. For both authors, this relation is the essential point for the Christian life. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article meditates on the Christian command to love the neighbor as yourself by focusing on how both Jacques Derrida and Søren Kierkegaard have read this command. I argue that Derrida, failing in his faithfulness to Kierkegaard, makes a mistake when he includes this command in the Greek model of the politics of friendship in his Politics of Friendship. Such a mistake is illumined by Kierkegaard’s understanding of the neighbor in this command from Works of Love because this understanding helps (...) to develop Derrida’s vision of a democracy and politics that resists the hegemony of the masculine and remains open to the event of a non-hierarchical relation to the other. (shrink)

To what extent do the mother's and father's jobs and occupational sex-typing influence the status and sex-typing of their children's occupation at first entry into the labour market? Referring to a database containing 5027 respondents of two merged Dutch surveys held between 1992 and 1995, this study finds that the effect of the mother's occupational status on her daughter's is significant, but smaller than either the effect of father's status on his son's or his daughter's status. The mother's occupational sex-typing (...) is related to her daughter's occupational sex-typing. The more female sex-typed the daughter's occupation, the lower her occupational status. In the same way, the father's occupational sex-typing is related to his son's occupational sex-typing. While the extension of the classical status attainment models by the mother's occupation and occupational sex-typing leads to interesting and new coefficients, the authors conclude that the more elementary classical model is not invalidated by these new perspectives. (shrink)

The temporal profile of dendritic branching in developing neurons is an interplay between the proliferating number of branching sites and the branching rates at these individual sites. The eventual metrical structure of dendritic arborizations is the outcome of joint processes of branching and elongation of outgrowing neurites. Dendritic growth models have shown to be powerful tools for quantitatively studying the rules of outgrowth, aiming at reproducing the shape characteristics in observed dendritic arborizations. Recent model studies, focusing on the branching process, (...) have predicted strongly decreasing branching rates during dendritic outgrowth. The implications of these findings for the metrical development of outgrowing dendrites will be discussed. (shrink)

Coastal ecosystems are increasingly dominated by humans. Consequently, the human dimensions of sustainability science have become an integral part of emerging coastal governance and management practices. But if we are to avoid the harsh lessons of land management, coastal decision makers must recognize that humans are one of the more coastally dependent species in the biosphere. Management responses must therefore confront both the temporal urgency and the very real compromises and sacrifices that will be necessary to achieve a sustainable coastal (...) ecosystem, one that is economically feasible, socially just, and ecologically sound. (shrink)

Most prions (infectious proteins) are self‐propagating amyloids (filamentous protein multimers), and have been found in both mammals and fungal species. The prions [URE3] and [PSI+] of yeast are disease agents of Saccharomyces cerevisiae while [Het‐s] of Podospora anserina may serve a normal cellular function. The parallel in‐register beta‐sheet structure shown by prion amyloids makes possible a templating action at the end of filaments which explains the faithful transmission of variant differences in these molecules. This property of self‐reproduction, in turn, allows (...) these proteins to act as de facto genes, encoding heritable information. BioEssays 30:955–964, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In response to its current crisis, scholars call for the revitalisation of democracy through democratic innovations. While they make ample use of life metaphors describing democracy as a living organism, no comprehensive understanding of ‘life’ has been established within democratic theory. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement articulates the urgency of refocusing on life and its meaning through radical democratic practice. This article employs a grounded theory approach, enriched with participatory methods, to develop a radical democratic concept of life in (...) conversation with BLM. It conceptualises life as the existence of a perspective that constantly transforms through its fundamental interconnectedness. Building on this concept, the article outlines four principles of a living democracy that go beyond the revitalisation discourse. A living democracy (1) safeguards the existence of all humans and nonhumans, (2) nurtures a diversity of perspectives, (3) fosters social and planetary connectivity, and (4) enables self- and collective transformation. (shrink)

When comparing alternative courses of action, modern military decision makers often must consider both the military effectiveness and the ethical consequences of the available alternatives. The basis, design, calibration, and performance of a principles-based computational model of ethical considerations in military decision making are reported in this article. The relative ethical violation (REV) model comparatively evaluates alternative military actions based upon the degree to which they violate contextually relevant ethical principles. It is based on a set of specific ethical principles (...) deemed by philosophers and ethicists to be relevant to military courses of action. A survey of expert and non-expert human decision makers regarding the relative ethical violation of alternative actions for a set of specially designed calibration scenarios was conducted to collect data that was used to calibrate the REV model. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the survey showed that people, even experts, disagreed greatly amongst themselves regarding the scenarios’ ethical considerations. Despite this disagreement, two significant results emerged. First, after calibration the REV model performed very well in terms of replicating the ethical assessments of human experts for the calibration scenarios. The REV model outperformed an earlier model that was based on tangible consequences rather than ethical principles, that earlier model performed comparably to human experts, the experts outperformed human non-experts, and the non-experts outperformed random selection of actions. All of these performance comparisons were measured quantitatively and confirmed with suitable statistical tests. Second, although humans tended to value some principles over others, none of the ethical principles involved—even the principle of not harming civilians—completely overshadowed all of the other principles. (shrink)

We argue that analyses of civil religious ideologies in civil rights contention must include the interplay of both movement and countermovement ideologies and must recognize the ways in which such discourse amplifies conflict as well as serves as a basis for unity. Based on in-depth interviews, archival research, and content analysis of civil religious language, this article examines how priestly and prophetic civil religious discourses, and the infusion of Black power ideologies, provided significant and dynamic resources for both movement and (...) countermovement ideologies during periods of civil rights contention in Cairo, Illinois, especially from 1969 to 1972. We compare the ways in which Cairo’s civil rights leaders mobilized prophetic versions of civil religion, and concomitantly, how white countermovement organizations used a priestly civil religion. On the prophetic side the themes of “equality,” “freedom,” “justice,” and the “right to revolt” against worldly socio-political arrangements were employed. On the priestly side, the theme of “law” and “order” was played up, with a secondary theme that connected religious acquiescence to worldly power with God’s will. The former rhetoric saw calls for economic and employment integration within God’s will and the nation’s destiny. The latter rhetoric contrasted civil rights claims as essentially “un-American.”. (shrink)

Le présent essai se propose d'appréhender la doctrine cartésienne selon laquelle ce qui existe ne saurait subsister sans que Dieu le soutienne dans l'être par une activité créatrice continuée. Comment Dieu soutient-il l'existence et pourquoi lui est-il nécessaire de le faire ? L'auteur analyse l'apparente contradiction, qui fait problème, entre la doctrine de la création continuée et l'affirmation par Descartes que le mouvement se poursuit à moins que n'intervienne quelque force extérieure. Il examine ensuite, pour la récuser, la thèse (défendue (...) par Gilson et par Gueroult) selon laquelle la doctrine de la création continuée impliquerait la discontinuité du temps. This essay seeks to understand Descartes's doctrine that what exists cannot continue to exist unless God sustains it by continuous creative activity. How does God sustain existence and why is it necessary for Him to do this ? The essay explores a puzzling apparent contrast between the doctrine of continuous creation and Descartes's claim that motion continues unless an external force interferes. Further, it considers and rejects the thesis (maintained by Gilson and Gueroult) that the doctrine of continuous creation entails that time is discontinuous. (shrink)

Le présent essai se propose d'appréhender la doctrine cartésienne selon laquelle ce qui existe ne saurait subsister sans que Dieu le soutienne dans l'être par une activité créatrice continuée. Comment Dieu soutient-il l'existence et pourquoi lui est-il nécessaire de le faire ? L'auteur analyse l'apparente contradiction, qui fait problème, entre la doctrine de la création continuée et l'affirmation par Descartes que le mouvement se poursuit à moins que n'intervienne quelque force extérieure. Il examine ensuite, pour la récuser, la thèse selon (...) laquelle la doctrine de la création continuée impliquerait la discontinuité du temps. This essay seeks to understand Descartes's doctrine that what exists cannot continue to exist unless God sustains it by continuous creative activity. How does God sustain existence and why is it necessary for Him to do this ? The essay explores a puzzling apparent contrast between the doctrine of continuous creation and Descartes's claim that motion continues unless an external force interferes. Further, it considers and rejects the thesis that the doctrine of continuous creation entails that time is discontinuous. (shrink)

The rapid rise of international collaborative science has enabled access to genomic data. In this article, it is argued that to move beyond mapping genomic variation to understanding its role in complex disease aetiology and treatment will require extending data sharing for the purposes of clinical research translation and implementation.

Transactive memory theory describes the processes by which benefits for memory can occur when remembering is shared in dyads or groups. In contrast, cognitive psychology experiments demonstrate that social influences on memory disrupt and inhibit individual recall. However, most research in cognitive psychology has focused on groups of strangers recalling relatively meaningless stimuli. In the current study, we examined social influences on memory in groups with a shared history, who were recalling a range of stimuli, from word lists to personal, (...) shared memories. We focused in detail on the products and processes of remembering during in-depth interviews with 12 older married couples. These interviews consisted of three recall tasks: (1) word list recall; (2) personal list recall, where stimuli were relevant to the couples’ shared past; and (3) an open-ended autobiographical interview. We conducted these tasks individually and then collaboratively two weeks later. Across each of the tasks, although some couples demonstrated collaborative inhibition, others demonstrated collaborative facilitation. We identified a number of factors that predicted collaborative success, in particular, group-level strategy use. Our results show that collaboration may help or hinder memory, and certain interactions are more likely to produce collaborative benefits. (shrink)