Secondary lymphoid organs form in utero through an inherited and well‐established developmental program. However, maternal non‐heritable features can have a major impact on the gene expression of the embryo, hence influencing the future health of the offspring. Recently, maternal retinoids were shown to regulate the formation of immune structures, shedding light on the role of maternal nutrition in the genetic signature of emergent immune cells. Here we highlight evidence showing how the maternal diet influences the establishment of the immune system, (...) and we also discuss how unbalanced maternal diets may set the response to infection and vaccination in the progeny. (shrink)

A resenha diz respeito ao livro "A grande onda vai te pegar, espetáculo e ciberespaço na Bola de Neve Church's", na qual trata das transformações no campo religioso hoje, a partir do estudo de caso com a igreja Neopentecostal "Bola de Neve Church1s".

We previously showed that owner personality and human-dog relationship predicted the performance of a human-dog dyad in a practical task. Based on the same data set we presently investigate the effects of individual and social factors on the social attraction of dogs to their owners. Twenty-two male and female owners and their intact male dogs were observed during a “picture viewing” test, where we diverted the owner's attention away from their dog whilst it was permitted to move freely around the (...) room. Owner personality axis “neuroticism” and dog personality axis “vocal and aggressive” were, respectively, positively and negatively related to the time the dog stayed in proximity to the owner. Quality of relationship and attachment also had significant effects on this proximity. We conclude that personality and the nature of the human-dog relationship may all influence dogs' social attraction to their owners. (shrink)

Although we are beginning to understand the neurocognitive processes that underlie the emergence of dreaming, what accounts for the bizarre phenomenology of dreams remains debated. I address this question by comparing dreaming with waking mind wandering and challenging previous accounts that utilize bizarreness to mark a sharp divide between conscious experiences in waking and sleeping. Instead, I propose that bizarreness is a common, non-deficient feature of spontaneous offline simulations occurring across the sleep-wake cycle and can be tied to the specific (...) characteristics of spontaneous thought as being dynamic, unconstrained, (hyper)associative and highly variable in content. Rather than misrepresenting waking reality, bizarreness can be employed to investigate the very building blocks of spontaneous cognition. The absence of bizarreness in thought processes is imposed by automatic and deliberate cognitive constraints. By contrast, thought and memory processes operating on their own without such constraints are inherently marked by different degrees and types of bizarreness. (shrink)

In this paper we introduce a new generation of language trainers: intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) with human appearance and the capability to teach foreign language vocabulary. We report results from studies that we have conducted with Billie, an IVA employed as a vocabulary trainer, as well as research findings on the acceptance of the agent as a trainer by adults and children. The results show that Billie can train humans as well as a human teacher can and that both adults (...) and children accept the IVA as a trainer. The advantages of IVAs are multiple. First, their teaching methods can be based on neuropsychological research findings concerning memory and learning practice. Second, virtual teachers can provide individualized training. Third, they coach users during training, are always supportive, and motivate learners to train. Fourth, agents will reside in the user's mobile devices and thus be at the user's disposal everywhere and anytime. Agents in apps will make foreign language training accessible to anybody at low cost. This will enable people around the world, including physically, financially, and geographically disadvantaged persons, to learn a foreign language and help to facilitate multilingualism. (shrink)

Soren Kierkegaard's Works of Love, a series of deliberations on the commandment to love one's neighbor, has often been condemned by critics. Here, Ferreira seeks to rehabilitate Works of Love as one of Kierkegaard's most important works. He shows that Kierkegaard's deliberations on love are highly relevant to some important themes in contemporary ethics, including impartiality, duty, equality, mutuality, reciprocity, self-love, sympathy, and sacrifice. Ferreira also argues that Works of Love bears on issues peculiar to a religious ethic, (...) such as the role of God as "middle term," and the possibility of preserving the aesthetic dimensions of love in a religious ethic of relation. (shrink)

We previously showed that owner personality and human–dog relationship predicted the performance of a human–dog dyad in a practical task. Based on the same data set we presently investigate the effects of individual and social factors on the social attraction of dogs to their owners. Twenty-two male and female owners and their intact male dogs were observed during a “picture viewing” test, where we diverted the owner’s attention away from their dog whilst it was permitted to move freely around the (...) room. Owner personality axis “neuroticism” and dog personality axis “vocal and aggressive” were, respectively, positively and negatively related to the time the dog stayed in proximity to the owner. Quality of relationship and attachment also had significant effects on this proximity. We conclude that personality and the nature of the human–dog relationship may all influence dogs’ social attraction to their owners. Keywords: companion animals; dog–human attachment; dyadic relationships; human-animal interactions; human–dog attachment; human–dog relationship; human–dog social interactions; personality; pets. (shrink)

To date, we know very little about the effects of the differences in attachment classifications on the physiological correlates of stress regulation in adolescent age groups. The present study examined for the first time heart rate and heart rate variability during an attachment interview in adolescents. HR and HRV data were collected during a baseline assessment as well as during the administration of the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System in a community-based sample of 56 adolescents. We additionally used the Adult (...) Attachment Interview in 50% of our sample to test the convergent validity. Adolescents with a secure attachment representation showed a higher HRV from baseline to the AAP interview compared to those with an insecure-dismissing and the unresolved group. A comparison between the two insecure attachment groups showed no significant difference related to HR and HRV. Cohen’s Kappa revealed an almost perfect agreement between the AAP and the AAI for the four-group classification. Our results indicate that adolescents with a secure attachment representation are more capable of dealing with attachment-related distress which is represented in higher HRV during an attachment interview. (shrink)

All humans share a universal, evolutionarily ancient approximate number system (ANS) that estimates and combines the numbers of objects in sets with ratio-limited precision. Interindividual variability in the acuity of the ANS correlates with mathematical achievement, but the causes of this correlation have never been established. We acquired psychophysical measures of ANS acuity in child and adult members of an indigene group in the Amazon, the Mundurucú, who have a very restricted numerical lexicon and highly variable access to mathematics education. (...) By comparing Mundurucú subjects with and without access to schooling, we found that education significantly enhances the acuity with which sets of concrete objects are estimated. These results indicate that culture and education have an important effect on basic number perception. We hypothesize that symbolic and nonsymbolic numerical thinking mutually enhance one another over the course of mathematics instruction. (shrink)

ExcerptThe French political theorist George Sorel repeatedly prophesied that Europe would provide the future soil of armed cataclysms.1 Furthermore, he claimed that the catalyzing factors for the conflicts of political power that lay behind such eruptions of violence and anarchy were myths, conceived not in the anthropological sense but as a series of images formed into a dramatic narrative capable of mobilizing social movements and inspiring violence to change the status quo. Thomas Mann lent weight to such an analysis when (...) he predicted that “in the era of the masses, parliamentary discussion would necessarily prove utterly inadequate as a means of shaping political will.” Thus, “in the future what was needed in its place were mythic fictions, which would be fed to the masses as the primitive battle cries necessary for unleashing and activating political energies.” Henceforth “popular myths, or better, myths trimmed for the masses, would be the vehicle of political action—fables, chimeras, phantasms that needed to have nothing whatever to do with truth, reason, or science in order to be productive nonetheless.”. (shrink)

Motivated by Kalman residuated lattices, Nelson residuated lattices and Nelson paraconsistent residuated lattices, we provide a natural common generalization of them. Nelson conucleus algebras unify these examples and further extend them to the non-commutative setting. We study their structure, establish a representation theorem for them in terms of twist structures and conuclei that results in a categorical adjunction, and explore situations where the representation is actually an isomorphism. In the latter case, the adjunction is elevated to a categorical equivalence. By (...) applying this representation to the original motivating special cases we bring to the surface their underlying similarities. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Le point de vue de Davidson sur les concepts de croyance et de signification implicites dans nos pratiques d’attribution de croyance et de signification peut à bon droit être mis à l’épreuve par une élucidation de ses rapports avec la psychologie empirique. Mais une telle mise à l’épreuve n’a de valeur que si elle confronte d’abord l’id’e reçue voulant que sa position a peu ou pas de liens avec l’etude empirique du développement cognitif. Je défends ici une approche du (...) point de vue de Davidson qui montre clairement en quoi une vaste gamme de découvertes empiriques en psychologie du développement -- souvent considérées comme non pertinentes, voire comme incompatibles, avec son enquête conceptuelle -- est en fait fort pertinente et en harmonie avec lui. (shrink)

Conscious experiences in infants remain poorly understood. In this NeuroView, Passos-Ferreira discusses recent evidence for and against consciousness in newborn babies. She argues that the weight of evidence from neuroimaging and behavioral studies supports the thesis that newborn infants are conscious.

A layoff is a threatening yet common event which employees might face at some point in their working lives. In two scenario-based experiments, we investigated which actions of a layoff agent during a dismissal notification meeting may contribute to laid-off employees’ fairness judgments and negative attitudes toward the employer. In general, the extent to which layoff victims were treated with respect was consistently found to increase perceptions of interpersonal and procedural fairness and to mitigate negative attitudes toward the employer. Further (...) results showed that layoff victims preferred to be given an adequate explanation of the reasons for the layoff and to receive notice from the direct supervisor. Relationships between the layoff agent’s actions and layoff victims’ negative attitudes toward the employer were mediated by perceptions of procedural fairness. In addition, delegating the layoff agent’s task to an external consultant increased perceived psychological contract breach. Our findings have important implications for organizational justice research and for the managerial practice of implementing fair layoffs. In particular, small actions, such as treating employees with respect, might be of benefit both to humans and organizations. (shrink)

Gender bias is a recalcitrant problem in academia and society. However, dissent has been created on this issue. We focus on dissenting studies by Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams, arguing that they reach conclusions that are unwarranted on the basis of the available evidence and that they ignore fundamental objections to their methodological decisions. Drawing on discussions from other contexts, particularly on manufactured dissent concerning anthropogenic climate change, we conclude that dissent on gender bias substantially contributes to the (...) exacerbation of biases in society and an increasing number of attacks on researchers, making it both epistemically and socially problematic. (shrink)

In this article I analyse the structural and cultural conditions of low-caste women's political agency in urban north India. Whereas in Western feminist political theory, the sexual division of labour is considered to be a key constraint for women's political participation, I show how this has a secondary relevance in the context analysed. I argue that issues concerning the division of labour are intertwined with and subject to those of male consent and support for women's activities. I illustrate how it (...) is often the supposedly ‘oppressive’ household boundaries rather than alternative outer spaces that, under a series of enabling circumstances, initiate women's political activities. Against this backdrop, I show how Indian women activists’ political agency is shaped by men's role, and how agency's relational nature is embedded in women's lifecycles, everyday practices and cultural expectations; in essence, in overall gendered agency. Comparative analyses between Western and non-Western models of political participation and discourse have only just begun. In this respect, I contribute to this nascent field in the following directions: not only do the arguments I present in this article challenge the individualistic Western subject of political action, but they also complicate the idea of the resulting empowerment as a culturally constructed process whose understanding arises from the dialectics between insider and outsider values. (shrink)

This book examines the significantly similar, yet finally different, thinking of two nineteenth-century existentialist thinkers, Soren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche. Its focus is on the different ways each envisioned a joyful acceptance of life - a concern they shared. Each strove to give a place to this acceptance in his picture of life, but their conceptions of it are far apart.

The paper tackles the controversial question of the affinities between the work of Aby Warburg and Carl Gustav Jung. Instead of focussing her interest exclusively on the concepts of collective memory and primordial images, though, the author critically compares the different ways Warburg and Jung looked at the renaissance of ancient practices of Paganism at the beginning of the Twentieth century, and questions the extent to which the cultural crisis heralded by Modernity, and the challenges brought about by secularisation influenced (...) their reading of the revivals. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to uncover some of the limitations that critical contextual empiricism, and in particular Longino's contextualism, faces when trying to provide a normative account of scientific knowledge that is relevant to current scientific research. After presenting the four norms of effective criticism, I show how the norms have limited scope when dealing with cases of current scientific practices. I then present some historical evidence for the claim that the organization of science has changed in recent (...) decades, and I argue that the uncovered limitations emerge from this larger phenomenon. Finally, I conclude by suggesting two ways to overcome the previously uncovered limitations. (shrink)

Associations of Politics and Nature: Cuban Corals in East‐Berlin, 1964–1974. The concept of association is centre stage in ecological studies on coral reefs. It describes the specific composition of diverse coral species in a given reef section that depends, among other factors, on the type of surf and the form of the seabed. ‘Association’ is also an important concept in Bruno Latour's plea for transcending the division between humans and objects in sociological analysis. Drawing on the idea of association, the (...) article explores the history of the corals that were moved from the northern Cuban coast to East‐Berlin in the late 1960s and worked into a coral reef diorama exhibited in East Berlin's Natural History Museum in 1974. By focusing on the mobilisation of the corals between Cuba and the GDR as well as within the museum, I will show that far from being sharply defined objects of nature, the corals collected in Cuba and displayed in East‐Berlin must be understood as parts of constantly changing heterogeneous associations of organisms, non‐organic material, national politics, postcolonial economies and institutional politics. (shrink)