An important feature of male fertility is the physiological priming of spermatozoa by a multifaceted process collectively referred to as capacitation. The end point of this evasive process is the hyperactivated spermatozoa capable of binding to terminal sugar residues on the egg's extracellular coat, the zona pellucida (ZP), and undergoing acrosomal exocytosis (i.e., induction of the acrosome reaction). The hydrolytic action of acrosomal enzymes released at the site of zona binding, along with the enhanced thrust generated by the hyperactivated beat (...) pattern of the bound spermatozoa, are important factors that regulate the penetration of ZP and fertilization of the egg. Despite many advances in identifying sperm components that promote capacitation, the mechanism underlying the calcium‐triggered process remains elusive. The purpose of this review article is to focus on new advances that have enhanced our understanding of in vivo/in vitro capacitation, a prerequisite event resulting from a dramatic modification and reorganization of the sperm membrane molecules. Special emphasis has been laid on accumulating evidence suggesting potential similarities between the sperm capacitation and early phases of calcium‐triggered membrane fusion (i.e., tethering and docking) during secretory and endocytotic pathways among eukaryotes. BioEssays 26:281–290, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

It is commonly accepted that thewestern view of humanity's place in nature isdominated by a dualistic opposition between nature andculture. Historically this has arisen fromexternalization of nature in both productive andcognitive practices; instances of such externalizationhave become generalized. I think the dualism can bedecomposed by identifying dominant elements in eachparticular instantiation and showing that their strictseparation evaporates under close scrutiny. The philosophical challenge this perspective presents isto substitute concrete socioecological analysis forfoundational metaphysics. A review of majorinterpretations of the history of (...) the dualism inWestern thought indicates that the legacy is moremultistranded than is usually admitted. Modern scienceis often assumed to lie squarely within the dualism,but this is unfounded. In contrast, science providestools for contextual analysis on how human activitiesand natural processes merge. The dualism thusevaporates in actual research practice. Nevertheless,the foundational metaphysics needs to be challenged,primarily because of its paralyzing effect onenvironmental philosophy. (shrink)

Ecology has had a lower profile in Biology & Philosophy than one might expect on the basis of the attention ecology is given in public discussions in relation to environmental issues. Our tentative explanation is that ecology appears theoretically redundant within biology and, consequently, philosophically challenging problemsrelated to biology are commonly supposed to be somewhere else, particularly in the molecular sphere. Richard Levins has recognized the genuine challenges posed by ecology for theoretical and philosophical thinking in biology. This essay sets (...) the stage for appreciating his work; it was preceded by four articles published in Biology & Philosophy 15(2),and is followed by a personal reminiscent. (shrink)

Parochial altruism is manifested in the most violent of conflicts. Although it makes evolutionary sense for kin, many non-kin groups also behave parochially altruistically in response to threat from out-groups. It is possible that such non-kin groups share a sense of “fictive” kinship which encourages them to behave parochially altruistically for each other’s benefit. Our findings show that individuals not directly involved in a conflict approved of parochial altruism enacted by an in-group against an out-group more when the out-group posed (...) a threat to the in-group; however, this effect wasgreaterwhen the in-group members expressed fictive kinship by addressing each other using kinship metaphors such as “brothers.” Furthermore, although males approved of parochial altruism more than females, as the male warrior hypothesis would suggest, the effects of threat and kinship metaphor on approval of parochial altruism applied to both genders. These findings were replicated in an honour and non-honour culture. (shrink)

Objective To determine the attitudes of Egyptian patients regarding their participation in research and with the collection, storage and future use of blood samples for research purposes. Design Cross-sectional survey. Study population Adult Egyptian patients (n=600) at rural and urban hospitals and clinics. Results Less than half of the study population (44.3%) felt that informed consent forms should provide research participants the option to have their blood samples stored for future research. Of these participants, 39.9% thought that consent forms should (...) include the option that future research be restricted to the illness being studied. A slight majority (66.2%) would donate their samples for future genetic research. Respondents were more favourable towards having their blood samples exported to other Arab countries (62.0%) compared with countries in Europe (41.8%, p<0.001) and to the USA (37.2%, p<0.001). Conclusions This study shows that many individuals do not favour the donation of a blood sample for future research. Of those who do approve of such future research, many favour a consent model that includes an option restricting the future research to the illness being studied. Also, many Egyptians were hesitant to have their blood samples donated for genetic research or exported out of the Arab region to the USA and European countries. Further qualitative research should be performed to determine the underlying reasons for many of our results. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Paragrana Jahrgang: 23 Heft: 2 Seiten: 153-164.

Which non-human animals are phenomenally conscious? In this paper I argue that the distribution of phenomenal consciousness in the animal world is ultimately an unsolvable issue, because of an underlying problem inherent in the field: what I call the Kinda Hard Problem. The Kinda Hard Problem arises because the grounds on which we base our consciousness attributions to humans third-personally are either unavailable or ambiguous once we move to the animal case. Its nature is that of an epistemic problem: we (...) cannot collect enough evidential grounds to justify attributions of phenomenal consciousness (and attributions of its lack) to non-human animals. Thus, it is impossible to ground rational belief one way or another regarding animal consciousness. This paper presents the problem and explains how it differs from other problems of consciousness. (shrink)

Ethics issues in the areas of science, technology and medicine have emerged during the last few decades. Many countries have responded by establishing ethics committees at the national level. Identification of National Ethics Committees (NECs) in the Eastern Mediterranean (EM) region and the extent of their functions and capacity would be helpful in developing capacity building programs that address the needs of these committees. Accordingly, we conducted a survey to determine the characteristics of existing NECs in the EM region.

Guilt and fear today have developed an unexpected quality: they contribute powerfully to the survival of humanity. The feeling of guilt proceeds from an elementary awareness: although the unequaled progress of science and technology in the twentieth century has undoubtedly ameliorated the conditions of human life, it also has given rise to an infernal logic of genocide and crimes against humanity, in which almost all nations, directly or indirectly, have participated and participate still. This awareness is joined to another, which (...) is itself accompanied by a primordial fear: for the first time in history, science and technology have endowed humanity with the power to destroy itself and the planet, without furnishing humans with the means of escaping their destined role as sorcerer's apprentice, for no science can tell us what to do with science. It is this double feeling of guilt and fear that pushes contemporary man to search feverishly for ethical foundations capable of furnishing discreet regulatory principles to underpin decisions and actions. From the point of view of contemporary humanity, ethics must be able to confer meaning and perspective on an existence which apparently has neither: “Now,” writes Hans Jonas, “we shiver in the nakedness of nihilism in which near-omnipotence is paired with near-emptiness, greatest capacity with knowing least for what ends to use it.”. (shrink)

Intelligence, genius and mental ability were a cluster of traits that received much attention in eugenics discourse. Intelligence was regarded as one of the good qualities superior men possessed, in turn beneficial for society as a whole. On the other hand, the socially problematic or unproductive were identified as being of inferior mental quality: “feeble-minded”. By and large, eugenicists thought that (1) intelligence was a unitary psychological trait that could be measured, being quantified as an intelligence quotient (IQ); (2) intelligence (...) was paired with educational achievement, reputation, and economic success; (3) a certain degree of intelligence was necessary to act morally and to foresee the consequences of one’s actions. Despite the prominent role of intelligence in the history of eugenics, there is considerable lack of clarity in what this general mental ability was considered to be. (shrink)

Ten years ago, an issue of the journal L'Homme et la Société was entitled “La Mode des identités.” Most of the articles were about cultural identity, but the basic thrust of the work was “a critique of the ‘fashion’ of identity calling into question the validity of a notion as striking as it is uncertain.” Recently, a special issue of the journal Sciences Humaines, entitled “Identité et identités,” dealt with personal, familial, social, professional identities and only spoke of cultural identity (...) marginally and in a roundabout way. Finally, in a manual of Sociologie politique published by the Presses Universitaires de France, the author takes to task the notion of ethnicity inherent to cultural identity and pushes the critique of the ethnic group to the point of negating its objective existence. Must we think then that the notion of cultural identity is henceforth obsolete, that it has lost all pertinence? (shrink)

In recent years, autonomous systems have become an important research area and application domain, with a significant impact on modern society. Such systems are characterized by different levels of autonomy and complex communication infrastructures that allow for collective decision-making strategies. There exist several publications that tackle ethical aspects in such systems, but mostly from the perspective of a single agent. In this paper we go one step further and discuss these ethical challenges from the perspective of an aggregate of autonomous (...) systems capable of collective decision-making. In particular, in this paper, we propose the Caesar approach through which we model the collective ethical decision-making process of a group of actors—agents and humans, as well as define the building blocks for the agents participating in such a process, namely Caesar agents. Factors such as trust, security, safety, and privacy, which affect the degree to which a collective decision is ethical, are explicitly captured in Caesar. Finally, we argue that modeling the collective decision-making in Caesar provides support for accountability. (shrink)

Chicana feminist writers have written eloquently about the condition of women in their communities. Many of them have aligned themselves with and participated in various political movements. This practice has infused their theorizing with various influences which makes them similar to other feminist theorists but also different. This paper provides an overview of how Chicana feminist writings address the ethnic specific ways in which gender oppression is imposed on them and their proposals for liberation.

This paper explores the way in which America—a cultural space produced by the world's largest media corporations and not the political entity called the United States— constructs, both discursively and spatially, zones of violence and zones of safety, contributing in the process to the maintenance and acclamation of political/symbolic global order. Through “thick descriptions” of three zones—EPCOT Center in Walt Disney World in Florida, as the ultimate safe zone; a day of media coverage of the Kosovo intervention in 1999, the (...) epitomy of a constructed zone of violence; and a reinterpretation of debates over media violence in the United States as the way of policing the zones of safety and zones of violence—the paper argues that zoning was the principal practice with which the self-content narrative of global economic success confronted the onslaught of alleged cultural violence in the 1990s. Zoning, to use Giorgio Agamben's analysis, is the forceful localization of an ever-expanding suspension of legal order; the practice that obfuscates the increasing frequency with which sovereign power encounters—and obliterates—bare life with impunity. Construction of boundaries between zones of safety and zones of violence is, therefore, more than performance of security—it is the way to affirm global order in face of its absence. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: 1. Introduction; 2. International law and postcolonial Africa; 3. Violence and conflicts in Africa; 4. Institutional responses to conflicts; 5. Genesis of the African Union; 6. Structures and philosophy of the African Union; 7. The African Union's peacebuilding travails in Burundi; 8. The African Union and peace initiatives in post-state Somalia; 9. Towards an African Union philosophy on peacebuilding?.

This paper proposes a conceptual framework for understanding the implementation process of a complex intervention concerned with professional role change. The proposed framework holds that the intervention must address three interacting systems (socio-cultural, educational and disciplinary) through which a health professional role is evolved. Each system is operationalized by four dimensions (values, methods, actors and targets). As for the implementation, the framework posits that it can be analyzed, by depicting the barriers and facilitators located within the dimensions of the three (...) interacting systems and within the intervention involved in the process through using the “menu of constructs” approach suggested by the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR). The implications of this framework, on theoretical research and practical levels, are reviewed. (shrink)

Background:Healthcare organizations are now challenged to retain nurses’ generation and understand why they are leaving their nursing career prematurely. Acquiring knowledge about the effect of ethical work climate and level of perceived organizational support can help organizational leaders to deal effectively with dysfunctional behaviors and make a difference in enhancing nurses’ dedication, commitment, satisfaction, and loyalty to their organization.Purpose:This study aims to determine the relationship between ethical work climate, and perceived organizational support and nurses’ organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover (...) intention.Methods:A descriptive correlational research design was conducted in all inpatient care units at three major hospitals affiliated to different health sectors at Alexandria governorate. All nurses working in these previous hospitals were included in the study (N = 500). Ethical Climate Questionnaire, Survey of Perceived Organizational Support, Organizational Commitment Questionnaire, Index of Job Satisfaction, and Intention to Turnover scale were used to measure study variables.Ethical considerations:Approval was obtained from Ethics Committee at Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University. Privacy and confidentiality of data were maintained and assured by obtaining subjects’ informed consent to participate in the research before data collection.Findings:The result revealed positive significant correlations between nurses’ perception of overall ethical work climate and each of perceived organizational support, commitment, as well as their job satisfaction. However, negative significant correlations were found between nurses’ turnover intention and each of these variables. Also, approximately 33% of the explained variance of turnover intention is accounted by ethical work climate, organizational support, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction, and these variables independently contributed significantly in the prediction of turnover intention.Recommendation:Strategies to foster and enhance ethical and supportive work climates as well as job-related benefits are considered significant factors in increasing nurses’ commitment and satisfaction and decreasing their turnover intention. (shrink)

Chicana feminist writers have written eloquently about the condition of women in their communities. Many of them have aligned themselves with and participated in various political movements. This practice has infused their theorizing with various influences which makes them similar to other feminist theorists but also different. This paper provides an overview of how Chicana feminist writings address the ethnic specific ways in which gender oppression is imposed on them and their proposals for liberation.

Publication date: 29 September 2016 Source: Author: Aida Cornelia Stoian This study highlights the results of an empirical research, whose purpose was to study the teachers` option of primary and preschool education to use learning situations for training pupils’ skills in relation to seniority in teaching and learning environment and to identify of the level of conceptual representation of the learning situations term in the opinion of teachers in primary and preschool education.We made a questionnaire in order to identify the (...) frequency teachers can organize learning situations and the teachers` conceptual representations of learning situation.The results have confirmed the conclusions to get teachers` adhesion to organize learning situations for pupils’ skills training, to develop teachers’ skills in harmonizing all the methods, means and teaching strategies with the objective and subjective factors determining the interaction between teachers and pupils. (shrink)

In this paper, the ethics of otherness of Emmanuel Levinas, for whom the nudity of the Face (visage) is never a matter of style but moral conscience, encounters the theory of (cultural) dialogical action, foundation for Paulo Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed and its denunciation-enunciation of dehumanization and oppression. For both authors, violence gets the meaning of possession, way throughout an entity, although existing, is partially negated. Such partiality, when negating the independence of the entity, states oppression, as it negates (...) the oppressed vocation to be more. Oppression kills life. Whereas, it is through the conscience of such condition of beingfor-other that the proper possibility of humanity can be thought, because the relation to the other or to the collective is our relation, irreducible to understanding. To recognize such subversion, therefore, is to recognize that as the oppressed free themselves, they avoid to get back to an oppressive regime. In doing so, they free their prior oppressors, they inaugurate love. Is it not to assume, in essence, that ethics is a construction of sense of life since the encounter with the Other? KEY WORDS – Humanism. Freedom. Ethics of otherness. Pedagogy of the oppressed. Social transformation. (shrink)

「六然訓」の六つの言葉を軸に、中村天風の人物像と思考と行動を考察する。天風思想を日常生活の心身の健康に活かす心構えも説く。.

A partir de las experiencias vitales del Colectivo Les Pites se pueden observar una serie de estructuras y dinámicas normativas dentro del baile tradicional asturiano derivadas del sistema cisheteropatriarcal en el que se inscribe. Existe un discurso de normatividad de género imbricado en esta manifestación cultural a lo largo de su historia, comenzando con referencias en la obra de Jovellanos (siglo XVIII). Este discurso hegemónico continua durante la época franquista con Coros y Danzas de la Sección Femenina y el uso (...) del folclore al servicio de la transmisión ideológica del Régimen. Con el paso a la democracia, este discurso normativo adquiere otras formas de mantenerse imbuido en el baile tradicional, evidenciando la fragilidad de la cultura de la Transición que más tarde será cuestionada a partir del año 2008. La necesidad de encontrar nuevos caminos y posibilidades, además del hecho de reconocer la agencia de las personas y la disidencia inherentemente ligada a la norma, conduce a Les Pites a ofrecer una serie de adaptaciones metodológicas en sus talleres de baile tradicuir para poder utilizar el baile tradicional asturiano como un vehículo de comunicación e interacción que forme parte de los diversos espacios colectivos de ocio propios de la actual sociedad asturiana. (shrink)

In verschiedenen Beiträgen dieses Bandes wird soziologisch und ästhetisch, kunst- und literaturwissenschaftlich erörtert, wie aus ästhetischen Erfahrungen Widerstandskraft gegen Zerstörung und Selbstzerstörung entwickelt wird. Es wird gezeigt, dass Kunst und Gesellschaft nicht ohne ästhetischen Widerstand zu machen sind. Dieser äußert sich nicht nur in der Produktion und in der Rezeption von Kunst, sondern auch in vielfältigen Praxen der Lebenswelt. Welche Rolle spielt ästhetische Erfahrung heute für die Fragen des guten Lebens und wie ist Ästhetik mit dem Leben selbst verbunden? Wie (...) kann das Verhältnis von Ethik und Ästhetik heute gesellschaftlich und politisch gedacht und vermittelt werden? Und vor allem: Wie kann der Destruktionsdynamik als Sucht und Sog gesellschaftlicher Selbstzerstörung durch ästhetischen Widerstand wirksam Einhalt geboten werden? (shrink)

In this article, I will try to explain the meaning of the word zihâr, translated as oath of the back, trying only to situate it in its context and to bring an elucidation of the subject`s origin. The zihâr is a type of repudiation used by a husband against his wife in the times of gâhiliyya (the ante-Islamic period), by using a solemn divorce formula which consists in saying: "let (her) be from now on as the back of my mother". (...) Therefore, backing up on this formula, I want to try to clarify this concept. (shrink)

In recent years, social networks have made significant progress and the number of people who use them to communicate is increasing day by day. The vast amount of information available on social networks has led to the importance of using friend recommender systems to discover knowledge about future communications. It is challenging to choose the best machine learning approach to address the recommender system issue since there are several strategies with various benefits and drawbacks. In light of this, a solution (...) based on the stacking approach was put out in this study to provide a buddy recommendation system in social networks. Additionally, a decrease in system performance was caused by the large amount of information that was accessible and the inefficiency of some functions. To solve this problem, a particle swarm optimization algorithm to select the most efficient features was used in our proposed method. To learn the model in the objective function of the particle swarm algorithm, a hybrid system based on stacking is proposed. In this method, two random forests and Extreme Gradient Boosting had been used as the base classifiers. The results obtained from these base classifiers were used in the logistic regression algorithm, which has been applied sequentially. The suggested approach was able to effectively address this issue by combining the advantages of the applied strategies. The results of implementation and evaluation of the proposed system show the appropriate efficiency of this method compared with other studied techniques. (shrink)

Este artículo tiene por objeto el analizar la violencia obstétrica en el contexto de nuestras sociedades modernas, tomando como punto de referencia las relaciones que los sujetos y esas sociedades establecen con los cuerpos humanos. Para esto, se emplearán las herramientas ofrecidas por la filosofía, la bioética y la antropología (tanto la positiva como la negativa), entendiendo que la violencia obstétrica ni comienza ni se agota en el ámbito médico, sino que ha de atenderse también a sus dimensiones histórico-culturales y (...) de género. (shrink)

This study examines the impact of board gender diversity on financial misconduct. The findings suggest firms with gender-diverse boards commit fewer financial reporting mistakes and engage in less fraud. The findings hold after accounting for the potentially endogenous nature of board demographic characteristics via instrumental variable approach. Furthermore, the findings are consistent in pre- and post-regulation periods and hold for firms with good and bad governance. The findings do not seem driven by differences in effort or quality, in terms of (...) independence and expertise, of female and male directors. The benefit derived from increasing the number of female directors on corporate boards seems to diminish at higher levels of gender diversity, indicating that impact of gender diversity on decreasing the likelihood of financial misconduct may be a result of a change to board group dynamics. (shrink)

The main thesis of Heyes' book is that all of the domain-specific learning mechanisms that make the human mind so different from the minds of other animals are culturally created and culturally acquired gadgets. The only innate differences are some motivational tweaks, enhanced capacities for associative learning, and enhanced executive function abilities. But Heyes' argument depends on contrasting cognitive gadgets with cognitive instincts, which are said to be innately specified. This ignores what has for some years been the mainstream nativist/anti-empiricist (...) view, which commits only to partially specified learning systems that become elaborated and built through domain-specific learning. (shrink)