Childhood scholars have found that age inequality can be as profound an axis of meaningful difference as race, gender, or class, and yet the impact of this understanding has not permeated the discipline of sociology as a whole. This is one particularly stark example of the central argument of this article: despite decades of empirical and theoretical work by scholars in “the social studies of childhood,” sociologists in general have not incorporated the central contributions of this subfield: that children are (...) active social agents (not passive), knowing actors strategizing within their constraints (not innocent), with their capacities and challenges shaped by their contexts (not universally the same). I contend that mainstream sociology’s relative imperviousness has led to theoretical costs for both childhood scholars—who must re-assert and re-prove the core insights of the field—and sociologists in general. Using three core theoretical debates in the larger discipline—about independence, insecurity, and inequality—I argue that children’s perspectives can help scholars ask new questions, render the invisible visible, and break through theoretical logjams. Thus would further research utilizing children’s perspectives and the dynamics of age extend the explanatory power of social theory. (shrink)

A profusion of jobs has arisen in contemporary capitalism involving ‘connective labor’, or the work of emotional recognition. Yet the expansion of this interpersonal work occurs at the same time as its systematization, as pressures of efficiency, measurement and automation reshape the work, generating a ‘colliding intensification’. Existing scholarship offers three different ways of understanding the role of emotions in connective labor – as tool, commodity or vulnerability – depending on their view of systematization as useful, inseparable or dehumanizing. Based (...) on 106 in-depth interviews and 300+ hours of observations, I found that vestiges of all three models lurked in the experience of providing connective labor, yet none fully captured the profound meaning practitioners reported finding in their work. Systems varied on three dimensions, reflecting the relative worth of worker, recipient or the work, extracting value from the forged connections, while the meanings workers derived shaped their perspective on its systematization. (shrink)

The turbulent social conflict over what counts as good-enough mothering and the greedy institution of work leaves many women trapped in what Joan Williams called the gender system of domesticity. Like self-help books, advertisements can lead mothers toward a culturally sanctioned compromise. This article looks at the “cultural deals” being offered for mothers by toy catalogs. The author examined the marketing of more than 3,500 toys in 11 catalogs fromthe 2000-2001holiday season. She found that the catalogs presented toys as solutions (...) that would allow mothers to be good mothers without having to physically be there, even as the advertising copy evoked images of companionship and togetherness. Catalogs also emphasized skill building over fun, defined only certain skills as skills in the first place, and dismissed nurturing as feelings at best worth of expression and not of practice. The author argues that the toys promise to perpetuate for the children the same contradictions the catalogs purport to solve for their mothers. (shrink)

Research has demonstrated large differences in the degree to which direct and indirect measures predict each other and variables including behavioural approach and attentional bias. We investigated whether individual differences in the co-variance of “implicit” and “explicit” spider fear exist, and whether this covariation exerts an effect on spider fear-related outcomes. One hundred and thirty-two undergraduate students completed direct and indirect measures of spider fear/avoidance, self-report questionnaires of psychopathology, an attentional bias task, and a proxy Behavioural Approach Task. TwoStep cluster (...) analysis using implicit and explicit spider fear as criterion variables resulted in three clusters: low explicit/low implicit; average explicit/high implicit; and high explicit/low implicit. Clusters with higher explicit fear demonstrated greater disgust propensity and sensitivity and less willingness to approach a spider. No differences between clusters emerged on anticipatory approach anxiety or attentional bias. We discuss results in terms of dual-systems and cognitive–behavioural models of fear. (shrink)

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is a major mechanism responsible for the spread of antibiotic resistance. Conversely, it is often assumed that antibiotics promote HGT. Careful dissection of the literature, however, suggests a lack of conclusive evidence supporting this notion in general. This is largely due to the lack of well‐defined quantitative experiments to address this question in an unambiguous manner. In this review, we discuss the extent to which HGT is responsible for the spread of antibiotic resistance and examine what (...) is known about the effect of antibiotics on the HGT dynamics. We focus on conjugation, which is the dominant mode of HGT responsible for spreading antibiotic resistance on the global scale. Our analysis reveals a need to design experiments to quantify HGT in such a way to facilitate rigorous data interpretation. Such measurements are critical for developing novel strategies to combat resistance spread through HGT. -/- . (shrink)

This article presents evidence supporting the claim that ethical reasoning is a skill that can be taught and assessed. We propose a working definition of ethical reasoning as 1) the ability to identify, analyze, and weigh moral aspects of a particular situation, and 2) to make decisions that are informed and warranted by the moral investigation. The evidence consists of a description of an ethical reasoning education program—Ethical Reasoning in Action —designed to increase ethical reasoning skills in a variety of (...) situations and areas of life. ERiA is housed at a public, major comprehensive U.S. university—James Madison University—and assessment of the program focuses on interventions delivered prior to and during orientation for incoming first-year students. Findings indicate that the interventions measurably enhance the ability of undergraduate students to reason ethically. ERiA’s competency-targeted program and positive student learning outcomes offers a promising model for higher education ethics programs seeking to connect classroom learning in ethics to decision-making in everyday life. (shrink)

Socioeconomic status -related health disparities persist for numerous chronic diseases, with lower-SES individuals exhibiting greater risk of morbidity and mortality compared to their higher-SES counterparts. One likely contributor is disparities in health messaging efforts, which are currently less effective for motivating health behavior change among those lower in SES. Drawing on communication neuroscience and social neuroscience research, we describe a conceptual framework to improve health messaging effectiveness in lower SES communities. The framework is based on evidence that health-message-induced activity in (...) the ventral striatum and subdivisions of the medial pre-frontal cortex predicts behavior change. Additionally, we draw from social neuroscience work showing that activity in these regions during valuation and the processing of self-related vs. social information, differs as a function of SES. Bringing together these previously disparate lines of work, we argue that health messages emphasizing the benefits to close others of engaging in behavior change will be more effective among lower SES individuals. We also outline a research agenda based on our framework. Ultimately, we hope that this framework utilizing a “brain-as-predictor” approach generates novel insights about the neural underpinnings of message-induced behavior change among lower SES individuals, and helps to close the gap in SES-based health disparities by harnessing the power of neuroimaging. (shrink)

PurposeSocial exclusion as a result of gender, race, and class inequality is perhaps one of the most pressing challenges associated with the development of a diverse information technology workforce. Women remain under represented in the IT workforce and college majors that prepare students for IT careers. Research on the under representation of women in IT typically assumes women to be homogeneous in nature, something that blinds the research to variation that exists among women. This paper aims to address these issues.Design/methodology/approachThe (...) paper challenges the assumption of heterogeneity by investigating how the intersection of gender, race, and class identities shape the experiences of Black female IT workers and learners in the USA.FindingsThe results of this meta‐analysis offer new ways of theorizing that provide nuanced understanding of social exclusion and varied emancipatory practices in reaction to shared group exposure to oppression.Originality/valueThis study on the under‐representation of women as IT workers and learners in the USA considers race and class as equally important factors for understanding variation among women. In addition, this paper provides rich insights into the experiences of Black women, a group that is largely absent from the research on gender and IT. (shrink)

Deep Brain Stimulation is currently being investigated as an experimental treatment for patients suffering from treatment-refractory AN, with an increasing number of case reports and small-scale trials published. Although still at an exploratory and experimental stage, initial results have been promising. Despite the risks associated with an invasive neurosurgical procedure and the long-term implantation of a foreign body, DBS has a number of advantageous features for patients with SE-AN. Stimulation can be fine-tuned to the specific needs of the particular patient, (...) is relatively reversible, and the technique also allows for the crucial issue of investigating and comparing the effects of different neural targets. However, at a time when DBS is emerging as a promising investigational treatment modality for AN, lesioning procedures in psychiatry are having a renaissance. Of concern it has been argued that the two kinds of interventions should instead be understood as rivaling, yet “mutually enriching paradigms” despite the fact that lesioning the brain is irreversible and there is no evidence base for an effective target in AN. We argue that lesioning procedures in AN are unethical at this stage of knowledge and seriously problematic for this patient group, for whom self-control is particularly central to wellbeing. They pose a greater risk of major harms that cannot justify ethical equipoise, despite the apparent superiority in reduced short term surgical harms and lower cost. (shrink)

Backchannel choices affect conversational development. Some backchannels invite interlocutors to continue to the next part of what they are saying and others invite them to elaborate on what they have just said. We tested how communicative modality (audiovisual, audio, text), environmental setting (wholly in-lab, partially in the wild), and conversational goals (on-task, off-task) influenced backchannel usage by participants. We found that backchannel production depends on modality, setting, and goals. For example, we found that specific backchannels played a more prominent role (...) in self-motivated dialogue. Knowledge of how backchannels are used has both theoretical and practical implications. (shrink)

In humans over 15% of X‐linked genes have been shown to ‘escape’ from X‐chromosome inactivation (XCI): they continue to be expressed to some extent from the inactive X chromosome. Mono‐allelic expression is anticipated within a cell for genes subject to XCI, but random XCI usually results in expression of both alleles in a cell population. Using a study of allelic expression from cultured lymphoblasts and fibroblasts, many of which showed substantial skewing of XCI, we recently reported that the expression of (...) genes lies on a contiunuum between those that are subject to inactivation, and those that escape. We now review allelic expression studies from mouse, and discuss the variability in escape seen in both humans and mice in genic expression levels, between X chromosomes and between tissues. We also discuss current knowledge of the heterochromatic features, DNA elements and three‐dimensional topology of the inactive X that contribute to the balance of expression from the otherwise inactive X chromosome. (shrink)

This article describes some potential uses of Bayesian estimation for time-series and panel data models by incorporating information from prior probabilities in addition to observed data. Drawing on econometrics and other literatures we illustrate the use of informative “shrinkage” or “small variance” priors while extending prior work on the general cross-lagged panel model. Using a panel dataset of national income and subjective well-being we describe three key benefits of these priors. First, they shrink parameter estimates toward zero or toward each (...) other for time-varying parameters, which lends additional support for an income → SWB effect that is not supported with maximum likelihood. This is useful because, second, these priors increase model parsimony and the stability of estimates and thus improve out-of-sample predictions and interpretability, which means estimated effect should also be more trustworthy than under ML. Third, these priors allow estimating otherwise under-identified models under ML, allowing higher-order lagged effects and time-varying parameters that are otherwise impossible to estimate using observed data alone. In conclusion we note some of the responsibilities that come with the use of priors which, departing from typical commentaries on their scientific applications, we describe as involving reflection on how best to apply modeling tools to address matters of worldly concern. (shrink)

Infant and young child electrophysiology studies have provided information regarding the maturation of face-encoding neural processes. A limitation of previous research is that very few studies have examined face-encoding processes in children 12–48 months of age, a developmental period characterized by rapid changes in the ability to encode facial information. The present study sought to fill this gap in the literature via a longitudinal study examining the maturation of a primary node in the face-encoding network—the left and right fusiform gyrus. (...) Whole-brain magnetoencephalography data were obtained from 25 infants with typical development at 4–12 months, and with follow-up MEG exams every ∼12 months until 3–4 years old. Children were presented with color images of Face stimuli and visual noise images that served as Non-Face stimuli. Using distributed source modeling, left and right face-sensitive FFG evoked waveforms were obtained from each child at each visit, with face-sensitive activity identified via examining the difference between the Non-Face and Face FFG timecourses. Before 24 months of age the face-sensitive FFG M290 response was the dominant response, observed in the left and right FFG ∼250–450 ms post-stimulus. By 3–4 years old, the left and right face-sensitive FFG response occurred at a latency consistent with a face-sensitive M170 response ∼100–250 ms post-stimulus. Face-sensitive left and right FFG peak latencies decreased as a function of age, and with an adult-like FFG latency observed at 3–4 years old. Study findings thus showed face-sensitive FFG maturational changes across the first 4 years of life. Whereas a face-sensitive M290 response was observed under 2 years of age, by 3–4 years old, an adult-like face-sensitive M170 response was observed bilaterally. Future studies evaluating the maturation of face-sensitive FFG activity in infants at risk for neurodevelopmental disorders are of interest, with the present findings suggesting age-specific face-sensitive neural markers of a priori interest. (shrink)

This book adds to the theoretical development of the emerging fields of experiential learning and outdoor education by examining the central concept, 'experience', and interrogating a central claim of experiential learning: whether, and if so how, a short-term singular experience can transform a participant's life as a whole and in a permanent way. While such a possibility has been corroborated by the personal testimonies of participants, and the activities of instructors over many years, the book argues that we must go (...) beyond this kind of 'evidence'. In comparing Anglophone and continental approaches and drawing on the work of Dewey, Dilthey and Merleau-Ponty in the philosophy of experience, Experiential Learning and Outdoor Education presents the first detailed review of the concept of 'experience' in European philosophy, as applied to outdoor experiential learning. A vital insight into the field, this is important reading for students and researchers working in the philosophy of sport, and pedagogical theory, especially in areas relating to the outdoors, but also to experiential education more generally."--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Recent studies have provided evidence of associations between neurochemistry and reading (dis)ability (Pugh et al., 2014). Based on a long history of studies indicating that fluent reading entails the automatic convergence of the written and spoken forms of language and our recently proposed Neural Noise Hypothesis (Hancock et al., 2017), we hypothesized that individual differences in cross-modal integration would mediate, at least partially, the relationship between neurochemical concentrations and reading. Cross-modal integration was measured in 231 children using a two-alternative (...) forced choice cross-modal matching task with three language conditions (letters, words, and pseudowords) and two levels of difficulty within each language condition. Neurometabolite concentrations of Choline (Cho), Glutamate (Glu), gamma-Aminobutyric (GABA), and N- acetyl-aspartate (NAA) were then measured in a subset of this sample (n = 70) with Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS). A structural equation mediation model revealed that the effect of cross-modal word matching mediated the relationship between increased Glu (which has been proposed to be an index of neural noise) and poorer reading ability. In addition, the effect of cross-modal word matching fully mediated a relationship between increased Cho and poorer reading ability. Multilevel mixed effects models confirmed that lower Cho predicted faster cross-modal matching reaction time, specifically in the hard word condition. These Cho... (shrink)

A Scientific Integrity Consortium developed a set of recommended principles and best practices that can be used broadly across scientific disciplines as a mechanism for consensus on scientific integrity standards and to better equip scientists to operate in a rapidly changing research environment. The two principles that represent the umbrella under which scientific processes should operate are as follows: Foster a culture of integrity in the scientific process. Evidence-based policy interests may have legitimate roles to play in influencing aspects of (...) the research process, but those roles should not interfere with scientific integrity. The nine best practices for instilling scientific integrity in the implementation of these two overarching principles are Require universal training in robust scientific methods, in the use of appropriate experimental design and statistics, and in responsible research practices for scientists at all levels, with the training content regularly updated and presented by qualified scientists. Strengthen scientific integrity oversight and processes throughout the research continuum with a focus on training in ethics and conduct. Encourage reproducibility of research through transparency. Strive to establish open science as the standard operating procedure throughout the scientific enterprise. Develop and implement educational tools to teach communication skills that uphold scientific integrity. Strive to identify ways to further strengthen the peer review process. Encourage scientific journals to publish unanticipated findings that meet standards of quality and scientific integrity. Seek harmonization and implementation among journals of rapid, consistent, and transparent processes for correction and/or retraction of published papers. Design rigorous and comprehensive evaluation criteria that recognize and reward the highest standards of integrity in scientific research. (shrink)

The least infringement principle has been widely endorsed by public health scholars. According to this principle, public health policies may infringe upon “general moral considerations” in order to achieve a public health goal, but if two policies provide the same public health benefit, then policymakers should choose the one that infringes least upon “general moral considerations.” General moral considerations can encompass a wide variety of goals, including fair distribution of burdens and benefits, protection of privacy and confidentiality, and respect for (...) autonomy.In this article, we argue that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's 2006 HIV screening recommendations may violate the least infringement principle. This is a concern because, although not legally binding, the Recommendations appear to have already influenced state laws and will likely continue to do so as legislative proposals continue to be passed. At a minimum, therefore, the Recommendations have important implications for HIV screening within the United States. (shrink)

Precision targeting of specific white matter bundles that traverse the subcallosal cingulate has been linked to efficacy of deep brain stimulation for treatment resistant depression. Methods to confirm optimal target engagement in this heterogenous region are now critical to establish an objective treatment protocol. As yet unexamined are the time-frequency features of the SCC evoked potential, including spectral power and phase-clustering. We examined these spectral features—evoked power and phase clustering—in a sample of TRD patients with implanted SCC stimulators. Electroencephalogram was (...) recorded during wakeful rest. Location of electrical stimulation in the SCC target region was the experimental manipulation. EEG was analyzed at the surface level with an average reference for a cluster of frontal sensors and at a time window identified by prior study. Morlet wavelets generated indices of evoked power and inter-trial phase clustering. Enhanced phase clustering at theta frequency was observed in every subject and was significantly correlated with SCC-EP magnitude, but only during left SCC stimulation. Stimulation to dorsal SCC evinced stronger phase clustering than ventral SCC. There was a weak correlation between phase clustering and white matter density. An increase in evoked delta power was also coincident with SCC-EP, but was less consistent across participants. DBS evoked time-frequency features index mm-scale changes to the location of stimulation in the SCC target region and correlate with structural characteristics implicated in treatment optimization. Results also imply a shared generative mechanism between evoked potentials evinced by electrical stimulation and evoked potentials evinced by auditory/visual stimuli and behavioral tasks. Understanding how current injection impacts downstream cortical activity is essential to building new technologies that adapt treatment parameters to individual differences in neurophysiology. (shrink)

In our article, we share the lessons we have learned after creating and running a successful legal laboratory over the past seven years at Yale Law School. Our legal laboratory, which focuses on the intersection of law and severe brain injury, represents a unique pedagogical model for legal academia, and is closely influenced by the biomedical laboratory.

Dharmakīrti’s (c. seventh century) Examination of Relations (Sambandhaparīkṣā) is unique in the Indian Buddhist canon for its being the only extant root text devoted entirely to the topic of the ontological status of relations. But the core thesis of this treatise—that relations are only nominally real—is in prima facie tension with another claim that is central to Dharmakīrti’s epistemology: that there exists some kind of “natural relation” (svabhāvapratibandha) that reliably underwrites inferences. Understanding how Dharmakīrti can consistently rely on natural relations (...) to prop up his presentation of inferential reasoning while at the same time advancing an anti-realist account of relations is critical for making sense of his system of logic and epistemology, which came to be nearly universally adopted in Tibetan Buddhism cutting across traditions. Chomden Rikpé Reldri (1227–1305), who was perhaps the most prolific commentator on logic and epistemology in the history of Tibetan philosophy, composed two texts commenting on the Examination of Relations, neither of which have received any scholarly attention to date. In this paper, I provide an introduction to Chomden Reldri’s two commentaries and consider how they may illuminate Dharmakīrti’s text and also what they reveal about the understanding of Dharmakīrti’s account of relations in early Tibetan scholasticism. I then present a translation of Dharmakīrti’s Examination of Relations together with Chomden Reldri’s commentary, Annotations and Topical Outline of the Examination of Relations (’Brel pa brtag pa’i mchan dang sa bcad gnyis). (shrink)