When we solve problems there are usually a number of different strategies that we can use. It is a hallmark of intelligence that we, as humans, are able to flexibly choose between them. Siegler and...

Extreme loss of skeletal muscle mass (atrophy) occurs in human muscles that are not used. In striking contrast, skeletal muscles do not rapidly waste away in hibernating mammals such as bears, or aestivating frogs, subjected to many months of inactivity and starvation. What factors regulate skeletal muscle mass and what mechanisms protect against muscle atrophy in some species? Severe atrophy also occurs with ageing and there is much clinical interest in reducing such loss of muscle mass and strength (sarcopenia). In (...) the meat industry, a key aim is optimizing the control of skeletal muscle growth and meat quality. The impaired response of muscle to insulin resulting in diabetes, that is a consequence of the metabolic impact of increasing obesity and fat deposition in humans, is also of increasing clinical concern. Intensive research in these fields, combined with mouse models, is reviewed with respect to the molecular control of muscle growth (myogenesis) and atrophy/hypertrophy and fat deposition (adipogenesis) in skeletal muscle, with a focus on IGF‐1/insulin signaling. BioEssays 28: 994–1009, 2006. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

A comprehensive understanding of the cerebrospinal fluid system is essential for our understanding of health and disease within the central nervous system. The system of CSF refers to all components involved in CSF production, movement, and absorption. In recent years, extensive research has resulted in vastly improved understanding of the CSF system in health and disease. Yet, several aspects remain to be fully clarified, notably along the spinal cord as the preponderance of research has focused on the brain. This review (...) briefly summarizes the CSF system and its implications for CNS diseases and highlights the knowledge gaps that require further research. (shrink)

This essay analyzes the implications of the performative aspects of Julia Kristeva 's Powers of Horror by situating this work in the context of similar aspects of her previous work. This construction and its relationship to abjection are integral components of Kristeva 's notion of practice and as such are fundamental to her critique of Hegel and Freud.

Previous research has shown that moral failures increase compensatory behaviors, such as prosociality and even self-punishment, because they are strategies to re-establish one’s positive moral self-image. Do similar compensatory behaviors result from violations in normative eating practices? Three experiments explored the moral consequences of recalling instances of perceived excessive food consumption. In Experiment 1 we showed that women recalling an overeating (vs. neutral) experience reported more guilt and a desire to engage in prosocial behavior in the form of so-called self-sacrificing. (...) In Experimental 2 this logic was applied to actual spontaneous helping behaviors towards an experimenter, with participants who recalled an overeating (vs. neutral) experience exhibiting more such helping in the laboratory. Experimental 3 expanded the investigation to self-inflicted pain: Overeating (vs. neutral) recall led to higher levels of self-punishment as indicted by longer time periods spent engaging in the cold-pressor task. In sum, failures in normative food consumption can be viewed as moral transgressions that elicits both interpersonal and intrapersonal compensatory behaviors aimed at restoring a positive moral self-image. (shrink)

Recent work has brought to prominence the idea that some utterances contain occurrences of noun phrases that not only corefer, but do so in a particularly guaranteed or explicit way—call such occurrences ‘de jure coreferential’. Studies of de jure coreference have considered both the characteristics of the relation, and its explanation. Pinillos (154(2):301–324, 2011) argues that de jure coreference is non-transitive, and uses this as part of his argument for a new semantic primitive explaining de jure coreference. In this paper, (...) I draw attention to a neglected distinction between de jure coreference and another kind of coreference with which it might easily be confused. I then consider Pinillos’s claim that de jure coreference is non-transitive, and conclude that even using Pinillos’s definition of de jure coreference, it is far from straightforward that he has demonstrated the non-transitivity of de jure coreference. I question whether Pinillos’s characterisation of de jure coreference is adequate, and offer a plausible alternative characterisation. I show that on this new characterisation, there is no evidence that the relation is non-transitive. (shrink)

Goodsell-Thea_Mental-files-and-their-identity-conditions.

There is general acknowledgement that both the anterior cingulate and orbitofrontal cortex are implicated in reinforcement-guided decision making, and emotion and social behaviour. Despite the interest that these areas generate in both the cognitive neuroscience laboratory and the psychiatric clinic, ideas about the distinctive contributions made by each have only recently begun to emerge. This reflects an increasing understanding of the component processes that underlie reinforcement- guided decision making, such as the representation of reinforcement expectations, the exploration, updating and representation (...) of action values, and the appreciation that choices are guided not just by the prospect of reward but also by the costs that action entails. Evidence is emerging to suggest that the anterior cingulate and orbitofrontal cortex make distinct contributions to each of these aspects of decision making. (shrink)

The traditional mission of safety net hospitals has been charity, providing the best healthcare for all individuals no matter their ability to pay. The focus has been on vulnerable populations that are low-income, uninsured, and other upstream circumstances that manifest downstream as poor health, poor health outcomes, and repeated high-cost interventions that fail to break cycles of perpetual health instability. Safety net hospitals are committed to serving their populations, even if only temporarily, through provision of subsidies and filling gaps that (...) exist in patients’ lives. These interventions do not lead to the elimination of gaps, hence cyclical health instability persists. It is a new day in healthcare and what it means for people to be well. The focus is on improving health outcomes by addressing root causes of health instability such as unstable housing, income, education, and access to affordable healthy foods. This gives us pause to reflect on the traditional mission of safety net hospitals and the impact of charity in isolation. Are safety net hospitals missing an opportunity to mitigate and eliminate perpetual health instability? Can they shift the paradigm of healthcare for vulnerable populations to alter their quality-of-life course? To move forward, safety net hospitals have to change their mind set and existing narratives about what is possible for vulnerable populations to achieve. These historic giants in healthcare have an opportunity to use their assets and employ a methodology of disruption and innovation to shift the mission of safety net healthcare from charity to equity. (shrink)

van Behrens, Dierk Review(s) of: Darwin, God and the meaning of life: How evolutionary theory undermines everything you thought you knew, by Steve Stewart-Williams Cambridge University Press, 2010, ISBN 9780521762786.

Public perceptions are well established as a key factor in support for climate change mitigation policies, and they tend to vary both within and between countries. Based on data from the European Social Survey Round 8 (N = 44 387), we examined the role of climate change beliefs and political orientation in explaining worry about climate change across 23 countries. We show that belief in anthropogenic climate change, followed by expectations of negative impacts from climate change, are the strongest predictors (...) of worry about climate change. While the strength of the association between political orientation and worry about climate change varies across countries, self-positioning further to the right of the political spectrum is associated with lower levels of worry in most of the countries included in the analysis. We further show that political orientation moderates the relationship between climate change beliefs and worry. While increased confidence in the anthropogenic nature of climate change and expectations of negative impacts are both associated with increased worry across the political spectrum, the relationship is weaker among right-leaning as compared to left-leaning individuals. Notably, the main effect of political orientation on worry about climate change is no longer statistically significant when the interaction terms are present. Finally, a relatively small amount of the explained variance in worry is attributable to differences between countries. The findings might inform strategies for climate change communication in a European context. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 4, April 2022.

This essay analyzes the implications of the performative aspects of Julia Kristeva's Powers of Horror by situating this work in the context of similar aspects of her previous work. This construction and its relationship to abjection are integral components of Kristeva's notion of practice and as such are fundamental to her critique of Hegel and Freud.

Introduction: the strategy of deconstruction -- The reception of derrida's thought -- The partial exit from phenomenology -- Beyond the subject -- Beyond the subject -- The other -- The other -- Violence to the other : religion, hospitality and forgiveness -- Violence to the other : limitrophy, animot, divanimality, the abyssal limit and the ends of man -- Epilogue -- Bibliography.

von Behrens, Dierk Review of: Brief encounters: Literature and beyond, by Satendra Nandan, IVY Press International Publishers LPO Box 8069, ANU, Acton, 0200, ACT, Australia, 1st Edition, 2015, pbk. pp. 257, $ 20.00.

von Behrens, Dierk Review of: How Echidna got its quills, by L and G Adams, illustrated by Barry Olive; Ali the Bold Heart, sensitively written by Jane Jolly and beautifully illustrated in watercolour by Elise Hurst.

von Behrens, Dierk Assimilation is a process by which a person or group belonging to one culture adopts the practices of another, thereby becoming a member of that culture.

von Behrens, Dierk Review(s) of: Philosophers without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life Edited by Louise Antony New York: OUP; 2010; 320 pp.

von Behrens, Dierk Review of: The great philosophers, by Jeremy Stangroom and James Garvey, Arcturus Publishing, 160 pgs. 9.99 pounds Hard back. 69 pictures. 2005. Index. 978-1-84837-018-02005.

von Behrens, Dierk Review of: Snakes, by Barbara Taylor, 64-pages; Novum organum scientiarum, by Francis Bacon; The origin of species, by Charles Darwin.

One of the goals of computerized tutoring systems is to optimize the learning of facts. Over a hundred years of declarative memory research have identified two robust effects that can improve such systems: the spacing and the testing effect. By making optimal use of both and adjusting the system to the individual learner using cognitive models based on declarative memory theories, such systems consistently outperform traditional methods. This adjustment process is driven by a continuously updated estimate of the rate of (...) forgetting for each item and learner on the basis of the learner's accuracy and response time. In this study, we investigated to what extent these estimates of individual rates of forgetting are stable over time and across different materials. We demonstrate that they are stable over time but not across materials. Even though most theories of human declarative memory assume a single underlying rate of forgetting, we show that, in practice, it makes sense to assume different materials are forgotten at different rates. If a computerized, adaptive fact-learning system allowed different rates of forgetting for different materials, it could adapt to individual learners more readily. (shrink)

This article suggests evidence for and reasons why prior acquisition may either facilitate or inhibit acquisition of a new construction. It investigates acquisition of the German passive and future constructions which contain a lexical verb with either the auxiliary sein “to be” or werden “to become”, and are related through these to potential supporting constructions. We predicted that a supported construction should be acquired earlier, faster, and unusually rapidly. An inhibited construction should show an extended depressed usage. We analyzed a (...) dense corpus of a German boy between 2;0 and 5;0. He acquired the sein- before the werden-passive. The former was supported by his prior acquisition of the sein copula, whereas the werden-passive itself supported one werden copula construction. He acquired the werden-future extremely slowly due to the hindrance of a semantically identical construction. These results fit with an emergentist approach in which apparently “sudden” acquisition is still due to gradual learning mechanisms. (shrink)

One of the goals of computerized tutoring systems is to optimize the learning of facts. Over a hundred years of declarative memory research have identified two robust effects that can improve such systems: the spacing and the testing effect. By making optimal use of both and adjusting the system to the individual learner using cognitive models based on declarative memory theories, such systems consistently outperform traditional methods (Van Rijn, Van Maanen, & Van Woudenberg, 2009). This adjustment process is driven by (...) a continuously updated estimate of the rate of forgetting for each item and learner on the basis of the learner's accuracy and response time. In this study, we investigated to what extent these estimates of individual rates of forgetting are stable over time and across different materials. We demonstrate that they are stable over time but not across materials. Even though most theories of human declarative memory assume a single underlying rate of forgetting, we show that, in practice, it makes sense to assume different materials are forgotten at different rates. If a computerized, adaptive fact‐learning system allowed different rates of forgetting for different materials, it could adapt to individual learners more readily. (shrink)

The child directed speech of twelve English‐speaking motherswas analyzed in terms of utterance‐level constructions. First, the mothers' utterances were categorized in terms of general constructional categories such as Wh‐questions, copulas and transitives. Second, mothers' utterances within these categories were further specified in terms of the initial words that framed the utterance, item‐based phrases such as Are you …, I'll …, It's …, Let's …, What did … The findings were: (i) overall, only about 15% of all maternal utterances had SVO (...) form (most were questions, imperatives, copulas, and fragments); (ii) 51% of all maternal utterances began with one of 52 item‐based phrases, mostly consisting of two words or morphemes (45% began with one of just 17 words); and (iii) children used many of these same item‐based phrases, in some cases at a rate that correlated highly with their own mother's frequency of use. We suggest that analyses of adult–child linguistic interaction should take into account not just general constructional categories, but also the item‐based constructions that adults and children use and the frequency with which they use them. (shrink)

There is wide agreement among dream researchers that emotional memories are activated during dreaming and that emotions play an important role in the thematic development of the dream. In accordanc...

This article explores the ways in which competing institutional logics influence the knowledge base of the police, ideas about good police practice and organizational identities. A tension between the humanistic professional police logic and the instrumental New Public Management (NPM) logic is discussed in the context of policing. While the humanistic professional police logic gradually emerged in the 1960s and 70s, over the past twenty years the police force has been reformed in line with the NPM logic. Through qualitative interviews (...) and a quantitative study of the police force, the article investigates the ways in which the ideas of what constitutes a normative good practice are shaped in relation to these two, opposing, logics. A central finding is that despite many years of NPM as the dominant steering logic, a humanistic professional logic persists. However, the shift towards the NPM logic transforms the knowledge base in a more evidence-oriented direction and affects the ideas of normative good practice, especially among police management. (shrink)

Normal 0 0 1 128 734 6 1 901 11.1539 0 0 0 A thrown stone raises the question of the position of authority and does so only by remarking us as responsible for our limits and their transgression, but it also raises the problem of boundaries. Are they natural, or are they inscribed in us? In Ancient Athens, boundary-stones were inscribed with a word that raises the problem of definition by implicating a coincidence of meanings. These stones were never (...) supposed to mark a boundary as an adamantine barrier proscribing transgression from one side to the other. And yet they did not for all that cease to be and mark a boundary. Although the identity between the stone and the word for boundary does not provide any answers as to how boundaries should be maintained or dissolved, it does raise the problem of the relation that the boundary engenders and the bond that it poses between two sides as a question of hospitality. (shrink)

With biobank research on the increase and the history of exploitation in Africa, it has become necessary to manage the transfer of human tissues across national boundaries. There are many accepted templates of Material Transfer Agreements that currently exist internationally. However, these templates do not address the specific concerns of South Africa and even of Africa as a continent. This article will examine three significantly important ethico-legal concepts that were deliberated and carefully adapted by a South African Institution to suit (...) the transfer of Human Biological Materials and associated data for biobank research, namely: informed consent; benefit sharing arrangements; and ownership together with intellectual property rights in human tissues. The discussion includes an analysis of current practice; the ethico-legal challenges in the South African/African context; the decisions made with regard to how the related ethico-legal challenges were addressed in the MTA; and justifications for implementing these decisions. The processes considered could be of benefit to other developing world countries who consider it necessary to manage the transfer of HBMs across national boundaries. (shrink)

I give an account how the principle of ‘respect for autonomy’ dominates the field of bioethics, and how it came to triumph over its competitors, ‘respect for persons’ and ‘respect for free power of choice’. I argue that ‘respect for autonomy’ is unsatisfactory as a basic principle of bioethics because it is grounded in too individualistic a worldview, citing concerns of African theorists and other communitarians who claim that the principle fails to acknowledge the fundamental importance of understanding persons within (...) the nexus of their communal relationships. I defend the claim that ‘respect for persons’ is a more appropriate principle, as it is able to acknowledge both individual decision making and the essential relationality of persons. I acknowledge that my preference for ‘respect for persons’ is problematic because of the important debate around the definition of ‘personhood’ in bioethics discourse. Relying on Thaddeus Metz's conception of moral status, I propose a relational definition of personhood that distinguishes between persons with agency and persons without agency, arguing that we have different moral obligations to these distinct categories of persons. I claim that this conception of personhood is better able to accommodate our moral intuitions than conventional approaches, and that it is able to do so without being speciesist or question-begging. (shrink)