It has long been assumed that the architectural proteins of chromatin (the histones, for example) are unrelated to their functional proteins (transcription factors, polymerases, etc). New studies(1,2) drastically change this perspective. It appears that a portion of the general transcription initiation complex TFIID is made up of proteins that not only carry marked sequence and structural resemblances to the core histones of the nucleosome, but also form an octameric complex similar to the histone octamer. This can now be seen as (...) part of a general pattern of continuity among structural and functional chromatin proteins. (shrink)

Extensive studies of DNA secondary structure during the past decade have shown that DNA is a dynamic molecule, whose structure depends on the underlying nucleotide sequence and is influenced by the environment and the overall DNA topology. Three major non‐B‐DNA structures have been described (Z‐DNA, triplex DNA and cruciform DNA) which are stabilized by unconstrained negative supercoiling and can be formed under physiological conditions. In this essay we summarize the DNA primary structure features that are pertinent to the formation of (...) these conformers and present data concerning the occurrence of these sequences in the eukaryotic genome. The evidence in favor of the existence of these unusual DNA structures in vivo is discussed. The effect of alternative non‐B‐DNA structures on the way DNA is organized in chromatin is considered, and this is followed by evaluation of the data relating these structures to eukaryotic transcription. Some possible mechanisms by which the effect of non‐B structures on transcription might be exerted are proposed. (shrink)

(1992). “Attention structure” or “visual regard” as measurement of social status in groups of children. World Futures: Vol. 35, Socio-Mental Bimodality, pp. 115-139.

This book explores the social practice of holding each other in our identities, beginning with pregnancy and on through the life span. Lindemann argues that our identities give us our sense of how to act and how to treat others, and that the ways in which we we hold each other in them is of crucial moral importance.

Theorists have spent considerable time discussing the concept of responsibility. Their discussions, however, have generally focused on the question of who counts as responsible, and for what. But as Gary Watson has noted, “Responsibility is a triadic relationship: an individual (or group) is responsible to others for something” (Watson Agency and answerability: selected essays, 2004 , p. 7). Thus, theorizing about responsibility ought to involve theorizing not just about the actor and her conduct, but also about those the actor is (...) responsible to—and specifically about how these people hold the actor responsible for her conduct. In this paper, I give a topology of the terrain of holding others responsible. Over the course of the paper I disambiguate two very broad senses of holding responsible—regarding another as a responsible agent and holding another responsible for a particular piece of conduct. Next, I argue that the latter sense of holding responsible is a genus with two species—what I will call “holding responsible as deep moral appraisal” and “holding responsible as accountability.” Appreciating these distinctions, I argue, sheds considerable light on a number of questions concerning the scope and nature of our practices of holding others responsible. Finally, illuminating these distinct senses of holding responsible and highlighting their features reveals an awkwardness in the most carefully explicated and influential account of holding responsible, namely R. Jay Wallace’s account in Responsibility and the Moral Sentiments. (shrink)

Holding On to Reality is a brilliant history of information, from its inception in the natural world to its role in the transformation of culture to the current Internet mania and is attendant assets and liabilities. Drawing on the history of ideas, the details of information technology, and the boundaries of the human condition, Borgmann illuminates the relationship between things and signs, between reality and information. "[Borgmann] has offered a stunningly clear definition of information in Holding On to Reality.... He (...) leaves room for little argument, unless one wants to pose the now vogue objection: I guess it depends on what you mean by nothing."—Paul Bennett, Wired "A superb anecdotal analysis of information for a hype-addled age."—New Scientist "This insightful and poetic reflection on the changing nature of information is a wonderful antidote to much of the current hype about the 'information revolution.' Borgmann reminds us that whatever the reality of our time, we need 'a balance of signs and things' in our lives."—Margaret Wertheim, LA Weekly. (shrink)

An alethic holding is any speech act that functions to hold another person to acting for reasons that they already had prior to the performance of a speech act with this function. Although it is tempting to think of such acts as either informing another person of extant reasons for acting or as creating new reasons for that person to so act, a central goal of this paper is to suggest that this temptation should be resisted. First, alethic speech acts (...) are situated within the broader terrain of performances that strive to hold others responsible. Second, the precise sense of ‘holding’ to reason that characterizes an alethic speech act is explicated, in a manner that distinguishes such acts from either those designed to inform one of extant norms or to add new norms. Third, an account that attempts to explain how a speech act can achieve this holding function is offered, one based on the idea of a self-conscious interpersonal, transaction. Finally, it is suggested that the terrain of holding other’s responsible sketched at the outset looks different once this account of alethic holdings is in view. (shrink)

Winnicotts Konzept des »Holding« bezieht sich auf das komplexe psychische Tun und Wirken der Mutter für ihr neugeborenes Kind, also darauf, dass sie sowohl als »Umwelt-Mutter« als auch als »Objekt-Mutter« fungieren muss. Während das Holding mit der Umwelt-Mutter assoziiert ist, möchte ich das »Containing« hier der Objekt-Mutter zuordnen. Es soll gezeigt werden, dass Winnicott diese Konzepte in Anlehnung an Freuds frühe Beobachtungen der für die emotionale Entwicklung des Kindes entscheidenden Rolle der Mutter erarbeitete. Obwohl die Rolle des Vaters ebenso wichtig (...) sei, betonte Winnicott, es liege in der Hand der Mutter, der Psyche des Kindes die Bedeutung des Vaters nahezubringen – oder nicht. Anknüpfend an Winnicotts späte Formulierungen aus »Objektverwendung und Identifizierung« wird vorgeschlagen, dass das psychische Überleben des Objekts die entscheidende interpsychische Dynamik im Kern der Eltern-Kind-Beziehung ist. Das intrapsychisch entstehende subjektiv überlebende Objekt gewinnt im Kontext der analytischen Situation potenziell an Stärke, wenn der Analytiker imstande ist, sein Überleben zu unterstützen. Um diese Themen kreist Winnicotts Objektbeziehungstheorie. (shrink)

In matters of responsibility, there are often two sides to the transaction: one party who holds another responsible, and the other who takes responsibility for her conduct. The first side has been closely scrutinized in discussions of the nature of responsibility, due to the influential Strawsonian conjecture that an agent is responsible if and only if it is appropriate to hold her responsible. This preoccupation with holding responsible – with its focus on the second-personal perspective and on responses like blame (...) – contrasts with a relative neglect of the perspective of the agent and the role that she has to play by taking responsibility. I aim to show that this neglect is undeserved – that taking responsibility is both distinct in character from holding responsible and fundamentally important in its own right. I develop a conception of taking responsibility that reveals an under-explored dimension of our responsibility practices. (shrink)

Contextualism about vagueness (hereafter ‘Contextualism’) is the view that vagueness consists in a particular species of context-sensitivity and that properly accommodating this fact into our semantic theory will yield a plausible solution to the sorites paradox.[1],[2] But Contextualism, as many commentators have noted, faces the following immediate objection: if we hold the context fixed, vagueness still remains, therefore vagueness is not a species of context-sensitivity. Call this ‘the simple objection’.[3] Absent a convincing reply to the simple objection, Contextualism is in (...) very bad shape. Oddly enough, defenders of Contextualism have said very little in reply. Proponents of the objection have tended to assume that this is because no reply is in the offing—the simple objection is taken to be unassailable. In this short paper, we sketch two replies to the simple objection which result in two very different kinds of Contextualism: Epistemicist Contextualism and Radical Contextualism. With these two theories in hand, the simple objection loses its force. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Familial Responsibility to Hold Good and Bad Holding Clumsy Holding Acknowledgments References.

When it comes to how to hold people responsible for wrongdoing, much of the African philosophical tradition focuses on reconciliation as a final aim. This essay expounds an interpretation of reconciliation meant to have broad appeal, and then draws out its implications for responsibility in respect to three matters. First, when it comes to criminal justice, prizing reconciliation entails that offenders should be held responsible to “clean up their own mess,” i.e., to reform their characters and compensate victims in ways (...) they find burdensome, an approach to punishment that differs from deterrence and desert theories. Second, regarding civil justice, reconciliation means that holding responsible to compensate wrongful harm means improving victims’ quality of life in ways they accept, which contrasts with a common prescription to put victims in the condition they would have been in had the wrong not occurred. Third, reconciliation can involve putting on trial more than just the direct offender, for instance family members who had been able to influence his behavior and were allied with him. The chapter provides reason to take the reconciliatory approaches seriously that will be found prima facie attractive by those from a variety of backgrounds. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Practical Ethics Practical Ethics and Hold Manufacturing Reason 1: Rock Modification is Acceptable Only for Safety Reasons Reason 2: Hold Manufacturing Violates Important Environmental Commitments Reason 3: Hold Manufacturing Harms Future Generations of Good Climbers Reason 4: This is a Slippery Slope; Any Acceptance of Manufacturing Will Lead to Abuses Conclusion.

Belief is not a unified phenomenon. In this paper I argue, as a number of other riters argue, that one should distinguish a variety of belief-like attitudes: believing proper - a dispositional state which can have degrees - holding true - which can occur without understanding what one believes - and accepting - a practical and contextual attitude that has a role in deliberation and in practical reasoning. Acceptance itself is not a unified attitude. I explore the various relationships and (...) differences between these doxastic attitudes, and claim that although acceptance is distinct from belief, it rests upon it, and is therefore a species of belief. (shrink)

This essay takes a close look at a species of care that is particularly needed by people with progressive dementias but that has not been much discussed in the bioethics literature: the activity of holding the person in her or his identity. It presses the claim that close family members have a special responsibility to hold on to the demented person's identity for her or him, and offers some criteria for doing this morally well or badly. Finally, it considers how (...) even those with dementia can hold others in their identities, and suggests that this kind of holding too can have great moral worth. (shrink)

A complete probability guide of Hold'em Poker, this guide covers all possible gaming situations. The author focuses on the practical side of the presentation and use of the probabilities involved in Hold'em, while taking into account the subjective side of the probability-based criteria of each player's strategy.

Tort and contract law have not kept pace with the stunning changes in medicine's economics. Physicians are still expected to deliver the same standard of care to everyone, regardless whether it is paid for. Health plans increasingly face liability for unfortunate outcomes, even those stemming from society's mandate to keep costs down while improving population health. This book sorts through the chaos. After reviewing the inadequacies of current tort and contract law, Morreim proposes that an intelligent assignment of legal liability (...) must rest on an intelligent division of labor between health plans and providers, beginning with the question "who should be doing what, for the best delivery of health care." She also provides a comprehensive reference source of case law, commentary, and empirical literature. (shrink)

Erasmus' Adages, a vast collection of the proverbial wisdom of Greek and Roman antiquity, was published in 1508 and became one of the most influential works of the Renaissance. It also marked a turning point in the history of Western thinking about literary property. At once a singularly successful commercial product of the new printing industry and a repository of intellectual wealth, the Adages looks ahead to the development of copyright and back to an ancient philosophical tradition that ideas should (...) be universally shared in the spirit of friendship. In this elegant and tightly argued book, Kathy Eden focuses on both the commitment to friendship and common property that Erasmus shares with his favourite philosophers - Pythagoras, Plato, and Christ - and the early history of private property that gradually transforms European attitudes concerning the right to copy. In the process she accounts for the peculiar shape of Erasmus' collection of more than 3,000 proverbs and provides insightful readings of such ancient philosophical and religious thinkers as Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Iamblichus, Tertullian, Basil, Jerome, and Augustine. (shrink)

This paper presents the data gathering of Matthew Fontine Maury at the U.S. Naval Observatory as pushing an epistemic boundary outside traditional laboratory walls. Maury's use and control of civilian navigators explicates the development of an astronomic epistemology deeply embedded in nineteenth century American society. In conclusion, following the movement of epistemic boundaries is offered as a guide to crucial moments in the development of a multifaceted modernity.

ArgumentIn theAlmagest, Ptolemy finds that the apogee of Mercury moves progressively at a speed equal to his value for the rate of precession, namely one degree per century, in the tropical reference system of the ecliptic coordinates. He generalizes this to the other planets, so that the motions of the apogees of all five planets are assumed to be equal, while the solar apsidal line is taken to be fixed. In medieval Islamic astronomy, one change in this general proposition took (...) place because of the discovery of the motion of the solar apogee in the ninth century, which gave rise to lengthy discussions on the speed of its motion. Initially Bīrūnī and later Ibn al-Zarqālluh assigned a proper motion to it, although at different rates. Nevertheless, appealing to the Ptolemaic generalization and interpreting it as a methodological axiom, the dominant idea became to extend it in order to include the motion of the solar apogee as well. Another change occurred after correctly making a distinction between the motion of the apogees and the rate of precession. Some Western Islamic astronomers generalized Ibn al-Zarqālluh's proper motion of the solar apogee to the apogees of the planets. Analogously, Ibn al-Shāṭir maintained that the motion of the apogees is faster than precession. Nevertheless, the Ptolemaic generalization in the case of the equality of the motions of the apogees remained untouchable, despite the notable development of planetary astronomy, in both theoretical and observational aspects, in the late Islamic period. (shrink)

Association between sister chromatids is essential for their attachment and segregation to opposite poles of the spindle in mitosis and meiosis II. Sister‐chromatid cohesion is also likely to be involved in linking homologous chromosomes together in meiosis I. Cytological observations provide evidence that attachment between sister chromatids is different in meiosis and mitosis and suggest that cohesion between the chromatid arms may differ mechanistically from that at the centromere. The physical nature of cohesion is addressed, and proteins that are candidates (...) for holding sister chromatids together are discussed. Dissolution of sister‐chromatid cohesion must be regulated precisely, and potential mechanisms to release cohesion are presented. (shrink)

A crucial question for egalitarians, and theorists of distributive justice in general, is whether people can be held responsible for disadvantages they bring upon themselves. One response to this question states that it would be inegalitarian to hold people responsible on the basis of their actions if their actions are not ultimately under their control and reflect instead the good or bad luck the agent had in being the type of person who happens to act in a given way. I (...) argue that even if we accept that there is something inegalitarian about holding people responsible on the basis of actions they did not ultimately control, the alternative (that is, not holding people responsible) is even more inegalitarian. Therefore, egalitarians, including so-called luck egalitarians, can and should hold people responsible on the basis of their actions, even if people lack free will and their actions are ultimately a matter of luck. Key Words: responsibility • egalitarianism • luck egalitarianism • fairness • distributive justice. (shrink)

This paper seeks to address research governance by highlighting the notion of public accountability as a complementary tool for the establishment of an ethical resonance space for emerging technologies. Public accountability can render development and design process of emerging technologies transparent through practices of holding those in charge of research accountable for their actions, thereby fostering ethical engagement with their potential negative consequences or side-effects. Through practices such as parliamentary questions, audits, and open letters emerging technologies could be effectively rendered (...) transparent and opened up to broader levels of scrutiny and debate, thereby contributing to a greater adherence of emerging technologies to ethics and moral consensus. Fundamental democratic practices could thus not only lead to better informed choices in design and development processes, but also contribute to more morally substantive outcomes. (shrink)

In Holding and Psychoanalysis: A Relational Perspective, Joyce Slochower brings a contemporary relational framework to bear on Winnicott's notion of the analytic holding environment. She presents a fresh, thought-provoking, and clinically useful integration of Winnicott's seminal insights with contemporary relational and feminist/psychoanalytic contributions. Seeking to broaden the concept of holding beyond work with severely regressed patients, she addresses holding in a variety of clinical contexts and focuses especially on holding processes in relation to issues of dependence, self-involvement, and hate. She (...) also considers clinical work with patients "on the edge" - patients who seem deperately to need a holding experience that remains paradoxically elusive. Slochower begins her study by questioning the therapeutic limitations of an interactive style. There are times, she proposes, when certain patients simply cannot tolerate evidence of the analyst's separate subjective presence and instead need a holding experience. Though this holding function is essential to work with difficult patients, it enters into the treatment of all patients, whether as figure or ground. Slochower's relational understanding of holding leads her to consider the impact of holding on patient and analyst alike. Throughout, she emphasizes the analyst's and the patient's co-construction, during moments of holding, of an essential illusion of analytic attunement; this illusion serves to protect the patient from potentially disruptive aspects of the analyst's subjective presence. Slochower's case vignettes helpfully illuminate the intersubjective aspects of the holding process, including the clinical picture when a holding frame fails. She elaborates her thesis by considering the therapeutic function of holding in mourning. And she concludes her study with a cogent examination of the theoretical and clinical limitations of working with a holding process. A welcome reprise on an essential Winnicottian theme, Holding and Psychoanalysis broadens and deepens our understanding of the therapeutic role of the analyst's holding function. (shrink)

This critical reflection on the ethical concerns of current practice is underpinned by a systematic synthesis of current evidence focusing on why and how children are held or restrained for clinical procedures within acute care and the experiences of those present when a child is held against their wishes. Empirical evidence from a range of clinical settings internationally demonstrates that frequently children are held for procedures to be completed; younger children and those requiring procedures perceived as urgent are more likely (...) to be held. Parents and health professionals express how holding children for procedures can cause feelings of moral distress expressed as uncertainty, guilt and upset and that this act breaches the trusting and protective relationship established with children. Despite this, children's rights and alternatives to holding are not always respected or explored. Children's experiences and perceptions are absent from current literature. Children and young people have a moral right to have their voice and protests heard and respected and for these to inform judgements of their best interests and the actions of health professionals. Without robust evidence, debate and recognition that children are frequently held against their wishes in clinical practice for procedures which may not be urgent, children's rights will continue to be compromised. (shrink)

If Large Language Models can make real scientific contributions, then they can genuinely use language, be systematically wrong, and be held responsible for their errors. AI models which can make scientific contributions thereby meet the criteria for scientific authorship.

This chapter contains sections titled: The Philosophical Tale.

One of my favorite sentences in Hilde Lindemann’s lucid and remarkable book, Holding and Letting Go: The Social Practice of Personal Identities is this: “To have lived... as a person is to have taken my proper place in the social world that lets us make selves of each other”. With this phrase, as with the rest of her book, Lindemann manages to pull off that rarest of rare feats in academic philosophical writing: to say something that is at the same (...) time philosophically insightful and universally relevant for beings like ourselves—something that not just describes and categorizes the modes of being a person, but says why personhood matters morally, why it deserves closer philosophical attention, and in the.. (shrink)

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue S1, Page S46-S49, March‐April 2022.

“Holdings” was written for the 2011 Reading Artifacts Summer Institute at the Canada Science and Technology Museum. I spent a week “embedded” with the group, attending workshops and instructional sessions, mostly in a warehouse filled with curious objects from the museum’s collection: a gigantic hard drive platter, an egg-sorting machine, fire engines, iron lungs, a scale model of a Babbage Difference Engine (which had been used to weigh down the back of somebody’s rear-wheel-drive car). Some of the artifacts were (...) historically important, and some were disarmingly ordinary. Others had come loose from their stories, and were just mystifying. The group spent five days exploring the innumerable intersections between these solid things and the people who lived, and live, among them. At the end of the week, during the closing presentations, I read this poem to the group about what I’d seen and felt as I watched them work. (shrink)