BackgroundHIV molecular epidemiology is increasingly recognized as a vital source of information for understanding HIV transmission dynamics. Despite extensive use of these data-intensive techniques in both research and public health settings, the ethical issues associated with this science have received minimal attention. As the discipline evolves, there is reasonable concern that existing ethical and legal frameworks and standards might lag behind the rapid methodological developments in this field. This is a follow-up on our earlier work that applied a predetermined analytical (...) framework to examine the perspectives of a sample of scientists from the fields of epidemiology, public health, virology and bioethics on key ethical issues associated with HIV molecular epidemiology in HIV network research.MethodsFourteen in-depth interviews were conducted with scientists from the fields of molecular epidemiology, public health, virology and bioethics. Inductive analytical approaches were applied to identify key themes that emerged from the data.ResultsOur interviewees acknowledged the potential positive impact of molecular epidemiology in the fight against HIV. However, they were concerned that HIV phylogenetics research messages may be incorrectly interpreted if not presented at the appropriate level. There was consensus that HIV phylogenetics research presents a potential risk to privacy, but the probability and magnitude of this risk was less obvious. Although participants acknowledged the social value that could be realized from the analysis of HIV genetic sequences, there was a perceived fear that the boundaries for use of HIV sequence data were not clearly defined.ConclusionsOur findings highlight distinct ethical issues arising from HIV molecular epidemiology. As the discipline evolves and HIV sequence data become increasingly available, it is critical to ensure that ethical standards keep pace with biomedical advancements. We argue that the ethical issues raised in this study, whether real or perceived, require further conceptual and empirical examination. (shrink)

The reduced costs of DNA sequencing and the use of such data for HIV‐1 clinical management and phylogenetic analysis have led to a massive increase of HIV‐1 sequences in the last few years. Phylogenetic analysis has shed light on the origin, spread and characteristics of HIV‐1 epidemics and outbreaks. Phylogenetic analysis is now also being used to advance our knowledge of the drivers of HIV‐1 transmission in order to design effective interventions. However, HIV phylogenetic analysis presents unique ethical challenges, which (...) have not been fully explored. This review presents an analysis of what appear to be key ethical issues in HIV phylogenetics in the hope of stimulating further conceptual and empirical work in this rapidly emerging area. We structure the review using the Emanuel Framework, a systematic, holistic framework, which has been adapted for use in developing countries, which bear the brunt of the HIV‐1 pandemic. (shrink)

Розкрито сутність поняття «рейтинг». Доведено значущість рейтингової оцінки для суб’єктів фінансового ринку, зокрема для страхових компаній, потенційних страхувальників, інвесторів та кредиторів.

This paper examines the asymmetrical aspect of causal relation, confronting it to Humean and Neo-Humean's view. Following Hausman and Ehring, we favor a situational approach to causal asymmetry. We explore the Hausman's analysis of flagpole's example, clearing the connexions between causation and explanation. Our general diagnosis is that the Neo-humean tradition wrongly supposes that nomic relations, with the exception of minor details, exhaust the causal relations.

In this work, I analyze our concept of cause in the face of criticism of Bertrand Russell in his article “On the Notion of Cause”. For Russell, there is an estrangement between the notion of cause and mature science of physics. The word cause (and its correlates) would not be used in physics, thus eliminating the main justification of philosophy for his job—the foundation of science. Thus, the various causal notions and the principle of causality should be abandoned by philosophers (...) as something outdated. The aim of this study is to assess the extent to which our notion of cause, with its asymmetric nature, can be explained by physics and investigate the question of the existence of causes in our world. (shrink)

"Williams's masterful translation satisfies (at last!) a long-standing need. There are lots of good translations of Augustine's great work, but until now we have been forced to choose between those that strive to replicate in English something of the majesty and beauty of Augustine's Latin style and those that opt instead to convey the careful precision of his philosophical terminology and argumentation. Finally, Williams has succeeded in capturing both sides of Augustine's mind in a richly evocative, impeccably reliable, elegantly readable (...) presentation of one of the most impressive achievements in Western thought--Augustine's Confessions." --Scott MacDonald, Professor of Philosophy and Norma K. Regan Professor in Christian Studies, Cornell University. (shrink)

Resumen: Tanto en Platón como en Aristóteles el eros es cuestionado como forma de relación con el otro que conduzca a una vida virtuosa y que permita además pensar la vida en común. En la perspectiva de Platón, tal cuestionamiento se daría en favor de una búsqueda de la Belleza que proveería un determinado modelo de philia −el de la philosofía−. En el planteamiento de Aristóteles, el cuestionamiento del eros por particulares se daría en favor de un modelo de philia (...) −la philia virtuosa− prácticamente limitado a un plano ideal −por cuanto los hombres virtuosos son muy raros de encontrar−. En ambos casos, sin embargo, la forma en que se está pensando la philia proveería, en cierto sentido, un modelo ideal de comunidad.: Both in Plato and Aristotle, eros is questioned as a form of relationship with the other that brings us to a virtuous life and enable us to think about life in community. In Plato’s view, such a questioning would be in favor of a search for the Beauty that would offer a particular model of philia −that of philo-sofia−. In Aristotle’s view, the questioning of eros by individuals would be in favor of a model of philia −the virtuous philia− virtually restricted to an ideal level −because it is rare to find virtuous men−. In both cases, however, the way philia is being thought would, in a sense, provide an ideal model of community. (shrink)

This book offers a critical introduction to the work of American philosopher D. G. Leahy (1937-2014). Leahy's fundamental thinking can be characterized as an absolute creativity in which all creating is 'live' -- a happening occurring now that manifests a supersaturated polyontological actuality that is essentially created by the logic that characterizes it. Leahy leaves behind the categorial presuppositions of modern thought, eclipsing both Cartesian and Hegelian subjectivities and introducing instead an essentially new form of thinking founded in a nondual (...) logic of creation. The new thinking delineates the absolute unicity of existence as a creative interactivity beyond all traditional dichotomies (such as one vs. many, unity vs. plurality, identity vs. change): a fully "digitized" actuality that is nothing but newness, which inherently implies nothing but change. Through this new form of thinking, change itself is revealed to be the very essence of reality and mind. Any reader looking for a quantum leap beyond the thrall of modern and postmodern fixations is invited to hear and apprehend this new thinking that refuses to be conditioned by paradigms, categories, species, genera, walls, bridges, boundaries, or abstractions: an essentially free thinking that embodies creative novelty itself. (shrink)

R.I.G Hughes offers the first detailed and accessible analysis of the Hilbert-space models used in quantum theory and explains why they are so successful.

Graphical AbstractTo mechanistically understand the dynamics of complex ecosystems, Yize Chen et al. employ symbolic regression (SR), a machine learning method that automatically reverse-engineers both model structure and parameters from temporal data. SR randomly assembles candidate models, computes the model fitness, and employs mutation and crossover to build better ones. The Pareto front reflects the trade-off between complexity and fitness of candidate models. More details can be found in article number 1900069 by Yize Chen et al.

Understanding the dynamics of complex ecosystems is a necessary step to maintain and control them. Yet, reverse-engineering ecological dynamics remains challenging largely due to the very broad class of dynamics that ecosystems may take. Here, this challenge is tackled through symbolic regression, a machine learning method that automatically reverse-engineers both the model structure and parameters from temporal data. How combining symbolic regression with a “dictionary” of possible ecological functional responses opens the door to correctly reverse-engineering ecosystem dynamics, even in the (...) case of poorly informative data, is shown. This strategy is validated using both synthetic and experimental data, and it is found that this strategy is promising for the systematic modeling of complex ecological systems. (shrink)

The diversity in agronomic practices being used by sugarcane producers in Brazil determines differences in economic performance and cost structure. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the cost of six systems of agronomic practices using fixed or variable rates for soil amendment, fertilizer, and defensive applications and assess the profitability of these systems at three scales of sugarcane production. We then describe the data sample related to the 2019–2020 harvest season and collected from fifty-five sugarcane producers in the (...) central-south region of Brazil. Thereafter, using a quantitative approach, a cost analysis was performed, and the cumulative frequency of the net revenue for the three scales of production (small, medium, and large), was calculated using a Monte Carlo simulation. The cost analysis indicated that fertilizer had the highest cost considering the agronomic practices adopted at the three scales of production analyzed. The cumulative frequency analysis results from the Monte Carlo simulation showed the highest net revenue per hectare for medium sugarcane producers. In addition, the presence of economies of scale was not confirmed because the lowest cost was found in small-scale sugarcane producers and the highest net revenue was obtained by medium-scale sugarcane producers. (shrink)

Dissertação: SOUSA, Marco Túlio de. As narrativas do Reino: Análise narrativa de programas televisivos da Igreja Universal nas madrugadas mineiras. 2014. 186f. Dissertação em Comunicação Social. Programa de Pós-graduação em Comunicação Social da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais , Belo Horizonte.

En virtud del carácter difuso que Foucault atribuye a las relaciones de poder, es posible afirmar que la sujeción de los cuerpos nunca es absoluta, de modo que estos no son algo inexorablemente determinado por el ejercicio del poder. En este artículo se muestra de qué manera el cuerpo, en tanto que blanco principal de un poder preponderantemente físico, puede en forma eventual constituirse en escenario de des-sujeción y resistencia, en el “lugar” desde el cual ese mismo poder puede ser (...) resistido. Esto, gracias a lo que en este artículo se describe como una “condición heterotópica” del cuerpo, que implicaría la excedencia y el desbordamiento de los procesos de sujeción, y que, en última instancia, permitiría hablar del “cuerpo experiencial” como el espacio en el que tendría lugar la puesta en cuestión de la propia subjetividad. (shrink)

In this first paperback edition, a new introduction by Tom Burke establishes the ongoing importance of Sleeper's analysis of the integrity of Dewey's work and ...

This book is not a study of Plato's philosophy, but a contribution to the literary interpretation of the dialogues, through analysis of their formal structure, ...

Linking the process of rational decision making to emotions, an award-winning scientist who has done extensive research with brain-damaged patients notes the dependence of thought processes on feelings and the body's survival-oriented regulators. 50,000 first printing.

Political liberals ask citizens not to appeal to certain considerations, including religious and philosophical convictions, in political deliberation. We argue that political liberals must include a demanding requirement of intellectual modesty in their ideal of citizenship in order to motivate this deliberative restraint. The requirement calls on each citizen to believe that the best reasoners disagree about the considerations that she is barred from appealing to. Along the way, we clarify how requirements of intellectual modesty relate to moral reasons for (...) deliberative restraint. And we argue against attempts to weaken our requirement of intellectual modesty by emphasizing those moral reasons. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe that there is a causal condition on perception, and that this condition is a conceptual truth about perception. A highly influential argument for this claim is based on intuitive responses to Gricean style thought experiments. Do the folk share the intuitions of philosophers? Roberts et al. (2016) presented participants with two kinds of cases: Blocker cases (similar to Grice’s case involving a mirror and a pillar) and Non-Blocker cases (similar to Grice’s case involving a clock and brain (...) stimulation). They found that a substantial minority agreed that seeing occurs in the Non-Blocker cases, and that in the Blocker cases significantly less agreed that seeing occurs. They thus hypothesized that folk intuitions better align with a no blocker condition than with a causal condition. This paper continues this line of enquiry with two new experiments. The paper investigates the generality and robustness of Roberts et al.’s findings by expanding the sense modalities tested from only vision to audition and olfaction as well. The paper also uses Gricean style thought experiments as a case study for investigating the “reflection defense” against the negative project in experimental philosophy. Our results replicate and extend Roberts et al.’s study and support their hypothesis that folk intuitions better align with a no blocker condition. They also provide an empirical reason to doubt the reflection defense. (shrink)

The Hellenistic philosophers and schools of philosophy are emerging from the shadow of Plato and Aristotle and are increasingly studied for their intrinsic philosophical value. They are not only interesting in their own right, but also form the intellectual background of the late Roman Republic. This study gives a comprehensive and readable account of the principal doctrines of the Stoics, Epicureans and various sceptical traditions from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. to around 200 A.D. Discussions are (...) arranged topically in order to address underlying issues and to make clear what the different schools have in common and how they differ. At the same time the coherence of each system as a whole is emphasized. (shrink)

The renowned philosopher John Searle reveals the fundamental nature of social reality. What kinds of things are money, property, governments, nations, marriages, cocktail parties, and football games? Searle explains the key role played by language in the creation, constitution, and maintenance of social reality. We make statements about social facts that are completely objective, for example: Barack Obama is President of the United States, the piece of paper in my hand is a twenty-dollar bill, I got married in London, etc. (...) And yet these facts only exist because we think they exist. How is it possible that we can have factual objective knowledge of a reality that is created by subjective opinions? This is part of a much larger question: How can we give an account of ourselves, with our peculiar human traits DS mind, reason, freedom, society - in a world that we know independently consists of mindless, meaningless particles? How can we account for our social and mental existence in a realm of brute physical facts? In answering this question, Searle avoids postulating different realms of being, a mental and a physical, or worse yet, a mental, a physical, and a social. There is just one reality: Searle shows how the human reality fits into that one reality. Mind, language, and civilization are natural products of the basic facts of the physical world described by physics, chemistry and biology. Searle explains how language creates and maintains the elaborate structures of human social institutions. These institutions serve to create and distribute power relations that are pervasive and often invisible. These power relations motivate human actions in a way that provides the glue that holds human civilization together. Searle shows how this account illuminates human rationality, free will, political power, and human rights. Our social world is a world created and maintained by language. (shrink)

Locke is the first English philosopher to be considered in this series, and that fact of itself is worthy of attention. Philosophy, of course, like science, knows no frontiers and no national boundaries. Yet it is true to say that Locke’s contribution to philosophy is typically and peculiarly English. His moderation, his emphasis upon experience, his tolerant spirit of compromise, his dislike of mystical extravagance and of metaphysical speculation, even that elusive quality of his which people call his “common sense”, (...) are English traits. His very defects, illogicality leading to inconsistency and an awkward disorderliness of thought so abhorrent to the. (shrink)