Ninety-one right brain-damaged patients with left neglect and 43 right brain-damaged patients without neglect were asked to extend horizontal segments, either left- or rightward, starting from their right or left endpoints, respectively. Earlier experiments based on similar tasks had shown, in left neglect patients, a tendency to overextend segments toward the left side. This seemingly paradoxical phenomenon was held to undermine current explanations of unilateral neglect. The results of the present extensive research demonstrate that contralesional overextension is also evident in (...) most right brain-damaged patients without contralesional neglect. Furthermore, they show that in a minority of left neglect patients, the opposite behavior, i.e., right overextension can be found. The paper also reports the results of correlational analyses comprising the parameters of line-extension, line-bisection, and cancellation tasks, as well as the parameters relative to the Milner Landmark Task, by which a distinction is drawn between perceptual and response biases in unilateral neglect. A working hypothesis is then advanced about the brain dysfunction underlying neglect and an attempt is made at finding an explanation of neglect and the links between the mechanisms of space representation and consciousness through the study of the changes induced by unilateral brain lesions in the characteristics of space-coding neurons. Abbreviations: C, control group;GN+91,full group of neglect patients;GN+27,group of neglect patients with relative left overextension;GN+14,group of neglect patients with relative right overextension;GN-43,full group of non-neglect patients;GN-9,group of non-neglect patients with relative left overextension; H canc, H cancellation task; LE, left extension; LE/RE, ratio of left-right extension; N+, neglect patients; N-, non-neglect patients; PB Land-M, perceptual bias on Landmark motor task; PB Land-V, perceptual bias on Landmark verbal task; RB Land-M, response bias on Landmark motor task; RB Land-V, response bias on Landmark verbal task; RE, right extension. (shrink)

L’ipotesi da cui muove la scelta di temi ed autori di questo percorso è quella di aprire esplorazioni ed incursioni nelle pieghe della cultura umana per cogliere le frizioni e le smagliature tra etica e politica in vista della possibilità, data o negata, di riconfigurare sé stessi e la cultura di cui ogni uomo è forza viva, mutante e trasfigurante. Un viaggio tra luoghi e stanze parallele, che a volte si svelano comunicanti, altre volte solo tracce di afone esistenze. Indagine (...) della storia e tentativo di una ermeneutica politica non riduttivistica, che intercetti intimamente la concezione e la struttura antropologica a fondamento di una società e di una sua organizzazione politica. La sfida di fondo di questo lavoro è quella di ripensare il posto dell’uomo nell’ordine dei significati del corpo, e ricondurre la corporeità nell’ordine dei significati di una antropologia politica. Da questa ipotesi, viene proposto un itinerario che intercetta alcuni dualismi e fratture come nuclei di criticità da cui muovere e infiltrarsi nelle intersezioni simboliche tra piano etico e piano politico dell’esistenza. (shrink)

This book examines the role of note-taking in ancient education as a pedagogical method, by taking readers on a stimulating analysis of lectures by ancient philosophers that were recorded by their students.

ABSTRACTThe quality of medicines is generally adequately assured by manufacturers and regulatory authorities for well-resourced settings, while the implementation of existing quality standards is challenged in many low- and middle-income countries. This situation of multiple pharmaceutical standards raises the question whether it could ever be ethically justified to compromise on the quality assurance of medicines depending on what individuals, communities, or societies can afford. In this paper, we contend that ethically, any unjustified exceptions to medicines’ quality assurance represents a violation (...) of the principles of beneficence and non-maleficence. Exceptions are only acceptable in exceptional and temporary circumstances, if based on a meaningful quality risk assessment, guided by a rigorous ethical framework built on the principles of independence, technical competence, transparency, and accountability. We also discuss how such exceptional and temporary circumstances should be defined/justified.... (shrink)

The new edition of this manual brings together a decade's teaching in bioethics. It confronts new questions and monitors the latest far reaching experiments, whose results and publications need to be properly understood.

Alison Simmons, in Simmons (1999), argues that Descartes in Meditation Six offered a teleological account of sensory representation. According to Simmons, Descartes’ view is that the biological function of sensations explains both why sensations represent what they do (i.e., their referential content) and why they represent their objects the way they do (i.e., their presentational content). Moreover, Simmons claims that her account has several advantages over other currently available interpretations of Cartesian sensations. In this paper, I argue that Simmons’ teleological (...) account cannot be sustained for both theoretical and textual reasons and that it does not have the advantages it is claimed to have. (shrink)

The essay analyses utopia as a key concept to investigate modern politics. It argues that looking at the works of Machiavelli and More in order to retrace the utopia-realism nexus permits to develop a valuable analytical tool to interpret the outset of political modernity.

Current research on choice overload has been mainly conducted with choice options not associated with specific brands. This study investigates whether the presence of brand names in the choice set affects the occurrence of choice overload. Across four studies, we find that when choosing among an overabundance of alternatives, participants express more positive feelings (i.e., higher satisfaction/confidence, lower regret and difficulty) when all the options of the choice set are associated with familiar brands, rather than unfamiliar brands or no brand (...) at all. We also find that choice overload only appears in the absence of brand names, but disappears when all options contain brand names—either familiar or unfamiliar. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)