The nuclear DNA of eukaryotes is organized into a series of loops each topologically anchored by elements of the nuclear matrix. Evidence is reviewed which indicates that the anchorage points of the loops are formed by transcriptionally active genes and that individual loops function as replicons. The data suggests a specific model for coupling of DNA replication and transcription in eukaryotes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the various guidelines presented in the literature for instituting an ethics curriculum and to empirically study their effectiveness. Three questions are addressed concerning the trainability of ethics material and the proper integration and implementation of an ethics curriculum. An empirical study then tested the effect of ethics training on moral awareness and reasoning. The sample consisted of two business classes, one exposed to additional ethics curriculum (experimental), and one not exposed (control). For (...) the experimental group, ethics exercises and discussion relevant to each topic were completed. Findings suggested gender differences such that, relative to other groups, women in the experimental group showed significantly improved moral awareness and decision-making processes. An explanation of the underlying cognitive processes is presented to explain the gender effect. (shrink)

Paul Appelbaum and colleagues propose four models of informed consent to research that deploys whole genome sequencing and may generate incidental findings. They base their analysis on empirical data that suggests that research participants want to be offered incidental findings and on a normative consensus that researchers incur a duty to offer them. Their models will contribute to the heated policy debate about return of incidental findings. But in my view, they do not ask the foundational question, In the context (...) of genome sequencing, how much work can consent be asked to do? (shrink)

We critique the distinction Byrne makes between strong causes and enabling conditions, and its implications, on both theoretical and empirical grounds. First, we believe that the difference is psychological, not logical. Second, we disagree that there is a strict Third, we disagree that it is easier for people to generate causes than counterfactuals.

Children deserve optimal medical care. Although prescription drugs play a prominent and essential role in pediatric health care delivery, health care providers often must make prescribing decisions for their young patients based on imperfect or absent safety and efficacy data for pediatric populations. Until relatively recently, the Food and Drug Administration made surprisingly little effort to improve the quality or quantity of clinical research data for this patient group. Despite recent agency efforts to improve the situation, only one-third of drugs (...) prescribed to children currently have been studied for safety and efficacy in pediatric populations. Moreover, recent agency initiatives to encourage pediatric drug research have generated mixed results and unintended consequences. The complex of issues surrounding the testing and prescribing of prescription drugs used for children will require that pharmaceutical companies, the FDA, and health care providers examine current practices, acknowledge their shortcomings, and consider cooperative, creative solutions. (shrink)

Creativity and civil courage are major dimensions of an intellectual's authority and contribute towards the enrichment of democracy. This book develops a sociological account of civil courage and creative behaviour in order to enhance our understanding of the nature of intellectuals' involvement in society. Barbara A. Misztal employs both theoretical-analytic and empirical components to develop a typology of intellectuals who have shown civil courage and examines the biographies of twelve Nobel Peace Prize laureates, including Elie Wiesel, Andrei Sakharov and (...) Linus C. Pauling, to illustrate acts of courage which have embodied the values of civil society. She advances our understanding of the nature of intellectuals' public involvement and their contribution to social well-being. In the current climate of fear and insecurity, as governments are forced to deal with issues of increasing complexity, this is a pioneering sociological book with a highly original approach. (shrink)

Children deserve optimal medical care. Although prescription drugs play a prominent and essential role in pediatric health care delivery, health care providers often must make prescribing decisions for their young patients based on imperfect or absent safety and efficacy data for pediatric populations. The safe and effective use of prescription drugs in children depends on a thorough understanding of the physiologic differences between children and adults. Currently, only one-third of drugs prescribed to children have been studied for safety and efficacy (...) in pediatric populations. Until relatively recently, the Food and Drug Administration made surprisingly little effort to improve the quality or quantity of clinical research data for this patient group. Recent agency efforts to encourage pediatric drug research have generated mixed results and created unintended consequences. The development, prescribing, and safety evaluation of prescription drugs for children will require that the FDA and health care providers examine current practices, acknowledge their shortcomings, and consider creative solutions to the challenges associated with gathering additional data through pediatric drug research. (shrink)

The pessimistic conclusion that people have relatively poor insight into the weighting schemes they use when they make holistic judgements has been generally accepted among judgement researchers. The empirical research that supported this generalisation rested on indices of self-insight that were produced directly by the subjects. It was often the case that subjects were unable to correctly name even the single most important factor influencing their decisions, as indicated by a mathematical model of their judgement schemes. Using an alternate method (...) of assessing self-insight, however, Reilly and Doherty found that subjects have far better self-insight than previously believed possible. The present paper employed the same methodology to investigate insight into the policy of another person as well as into oneself, and examined the relation of self-insight and other-insight to interpersonal conflict. Subjects were 50 dyads of university students. The results showed that: subjects exhibited the expected high levels of self-insight via the recognition procedure; subjects were able to identify the statistically generated policy of their roommate, thus exhibiting other-insight; the ability to identify one's own policy is somewhat related to the ability to articulate one's own policy that is, roommates with insight via recognition had higher indices of self-insight as measured by the traditional correlation method; subjects who were able to identify their own policy were more likely to identify their roommate's policy and individuals who possess self- and other-insight had less conflict in their roommate relationships. (shrink)

The joint effort by the U.S. government and the political elite of Puerto Rico to industrialize the island created increased demand for female labor and a decline in the number of jobs traditionally held by men. The authors examine whether women's labor force participation in the formal sector responds to improving opportunities for women, declining opportunities for men, or the household's changing opportunity structures. Specifically, they examine a woman's return to work after the birth of her first child as the (...) initial point of conflict between productive and reproductive work. The data used in these analyses are from the 1982 Puerto Rican Fertility and Family Planning Assessment, an islandwide, representative sample of never-married and ever-married women between the ages of fifteen and forty-nine. The authors estimate a series of nested logistic regression models to evaluate the influence of occupational expansion or contraction on the timing of return to work after the first birth. Their findings offer selective support for the idea that women's lives are affected primarily by the occurrence of growing labor demand for women's labor. (shrink)

The theme of this special issue is Post-truth. No doubt it was my exasperation with the terminological state of our collective situation that incited me in the spring of 2017 to settle upon it. What, exactly, does the hyphenated couplet mean or to what does it refer? What is its significance or sense? How is it being used, by whom, for what purpose, and with what consequences—for whom? And if, as was being asserted on nearly every side, we currently find (...) ourselves in post-truth, how might we ever get out, presuming we may one day want as much? The original contributions by Sarah Burgess, James Crosswhite, Jason David Myres, Bradford Vivian, and Eric King Watts published herein go a long way toward answering these... (shrink)

This article argues that today’s search for identity, in the context of the rise of a new spirituality and the decline of authoritative memories, facilitates the forging of a new connection between soul and memory and enhances the importance of traumatic memories. Consequently, we witness the sacralization of memory which in unsettled times, when memories tend to become fixed and frozen, can undermine intergroup cooperation. The article asserts that an ethical burden, prompted by viewing memory as the surrogate of the (...) soul and the overrating of the importance of the politics of identity, can result in the displacement of public concerns with private ones. It stresses a need to rethink what kind of memory is compatible with a just, pluralist and cohesive democratic system. (shrink)

The placing of the concept citizen in the context of globalisation makes it possible to approach it using the category of cosmopolitism and the related dispute between the advocates of pluralism and those of hegemony. In the debates on cosmopolitism, the transition from the classic concept of ‘citizen’ to that of ‘citizen of the world’, or cosmopolite, is generally regarded as something obvious, just as is its territorial extension. The concept of the citizen thus becomes transcendental and virtual. Usually its (...) Greek roots are pointed to, as cosmo-polites is derived from the word cosmos, an ordered world, the universe and polites, a citizen. The historians of concepts are, however, right to point out that in its original form, that is, among the cynics and the stoics, the word cosmopolites was understood in a philosophical and moral rather than in a political sense. It was a deliberate rejection of polis as a specific place and a specific political order, in favour of a universal space and natural law. Humans, as inhabitants of the universe, are subject only to the authority of the world-penetrating logos, the principles and laws with which they were able to become acquainted by applying their own rationality; this very capability was an obligation to observe those principles and laws and to comply with them. Because of its very nature, the concept of a cosmopolite is thus apolitical, or, in other word, not uncitizen-like. (shrink)

Humans appear to follow normative rules of inductive reasoning in "premise diversity tasks" that is, they know that dissimilar rather than similar evidence is better for generalising hypotheses. In three experiments, we use a "hypothesis limitation task" to compare a related inductive reasoning skill knowing how to limit hypotheses by using a negative test strategy. Participants are told that one category member has some property (e.g. Dogs have a merocrine gland) and are asked what evidence they would test to ensure (...) that either all (generalisation) or only (limitation) category members have that property (e.g. All/Only mammals have merocrine glands; tests: wolf, bull, crocodile). Despite participants' reluctance to use negative tests in the Wason 2-4-6 task and other reasoning tasks, participants do use normatively correct negative tests in the hypothesis limitation task as often as they use diverse positive tests in the premise diversity task. Moreover, when given a hypothesis limitation task before a rule evaluation task (similar to the 2-4-6 task), the use of negative tests increases. Thus, when testing hypotheses, people can and do use the right kind of test strategy for the task. (shrink)

When base rates are learned and used in an experiential manner subjects show better base rate use, perhaps because the implicit learning system is engaged. A causal framework in which base rates are relevant might also be necessary. Humans might thus perform better on more ecologically valid tasks, which are likely to contain those three components.

Drawing on everyday telephone and video interactions, this book surveys how English speakers use grammar to formulate responses in ordinary conversation. The authors show that speakers build their responses in a variety of ways: the responses can be longer or shorter, repetitive or not, and can be uttered with different intonational 'melodies'. Focusing on four sequence types: responses to questions, responses to informings, responses to assessments, and responses to requests, they argue that an interactional approach holds the key to explaining (...) why some types of utterances in English conversation seem to have something 'missing' and others seem overly wordy. (shrink)

The cytokine interferon‐γ (IFN‐γ), initiates both cell cycle arrest and cell death in certain cell lines. Through a novel strategy of cell transfection with episomal vectors expressing antisense cDNAs, Deiss et al.(1.2) have demonstrated that it is possible to isolate genes that are required for the initiation of cell death by the cytokine IFN‐γ. This approach, referred to as TKO, for Technical Knock Out, has identified several genes whose activity appears to be essential for the induction of apoptosis by IFN‐γ (...) in HeLa cells. Interestingly, these genes appear to mediate IFN‐γ‐induced apoptosis in HeLa cells, but their inhibition by antisense does not ameliorate the anti‐proliferative effects of IFN‐γ in these cells. The clever strategy employed by these authors holds promise for others who wish to isolate genes required for other differentiative processes in cultured cell lines. (shrink)

SummaryCross-sectional studies in Australia and the Philippines and a longitudinal prospective study in a selected Australian sample of breast-feeding mothers have shown that basal serum prolactin concentrations are elevated during 15–21 months of lactational amenorrhoea.A predictive model of serum PRL levels and return of cyclic ovarian activity during full breast-feeding, partial breast-feeding and weaning has been developed from the results of breast-feeding behaviour and serum PRL, gonadotrophin and oestradiol measurements in 34 mothers breast-feeding on demand for a mean of 67 (...) weeks.Breast-feeding patterns influence serum PRL levels. Important factors during full breast-feeding are the age of the baby, the longest interval between feeds at night and total 24-hr suckling time, and following the introduction of supplements, the mean interval between feeds, together with the total 24-hr suckling time and the number of solid supplements per day.The precise mechanisms whereby breast-feeding regulates cyclic ovarian activity remain unknown. Gonadotrophin secretion appears to be quantitatively normal, but qualitative changes, secondary to altered hypothalamic activity, may be the most important factor. A direct inhibitory effect of PRL on ovarian follicular development and steroidogenesis remains possible.Ovulation with a normal luteal phase is probable for 30% of breast-feeding mothers before the first menses, but is unlikely before 6 months, provided breast-feeding is frequent day and night.Measurement of serum PRL is a sensitive index of the return of menstruation and fertility during lactation in the population studied. (shrink)

This study documents and characterizes a phenomenon in naturally‐occurring conversation which I have termed interactional reconstruction. Interactional reconstruction involves retroactive reinterpretation of an earlier utterance (or set of utterances) on the basis of a more recent utterance (or set of utterances). This work is meant to serve two functions: first, to enrich our theories of human communication; and second, to explore directions and implications for theories of meaning and discourse modeling within cognitive science.

On the fiftieth anniversary of Philosophy and Rhetoric I hope a future for the journal that not only continues to publish scholarship that reflects seriously on the productive possibilities of putting the unique understandings of the human condition delivered by philosophy into contact with the singular insights into the power and perils of speech, writing, and gesture offered up by rhetoric. I also wish for it printed pages on which scholars engage thoughtfully the challenges posed by worlds and loss of (...) worlds. Never before in my lifetime has this task seemed so urgent and so necessary. This article is delivered in that spirit.On 13 July 2013 a jury of six women in Sanford, Florida, returned a verdict of not... (shrink)

Arguing that the fruitful approach to a reworking of the social depends upon forging an alliance between sociological theory and feminist theory, the paper analyses strands in sociological thinking which are responsible for renewed interest in the ‘social’. The first perspective, as developed by Touraine, Urry, Bauman and Castells, formulates a new agenda for ‘sociology beyond the social’ and emphasizes the limitations of the concept of ‘the social as society’. The second orientation, represented here by Richard Sennett, tracks the shifting (...) relationships between public and private. The third strand, illustrated by the recent work of Robert Putnam, focuses on the notion of social capital. A comparison between these perspectives introduces my argument that we should search for a new balance not only between local and global, and private and public, but also between formality and informality as only such an approach has the potential to capture the complexity of and the interdependence between conditions responsible for the production of demands for trust and ways of generating trust. The paper argues that how actors strike the optimal balance between formality and informality in interactions depends on the specific characteristics of different realms of interaction. Therefore, in conclusion, I describe three styles of interaction: civility, sociability and intimacy, which represent the essential basis for an enhanced quality of social and personal life. (shrink)

The two target articles in this issue bring into focus the struggle for governance over biomedical interventions that may offer some families more agency—the capacity to act—in the context of many...

To understand public discourse in the United States on genetic causation of behavioral disorders, we analyzed media representations of genetic research on addiction published between 1990 and 2010. We conclude first that the media simplistically represent biological bases of addiction and willpower as being mutually exclusive: behaviors are either genetically determined, or they are a choice. Second, most articles provide only cursory or no treatment of the environmental contribution. A media focus on genetics directs attention away from environmental factors. Rhetorically, (...) media neglect the complexity underlying the etiology the addiction and direct focus back toward individual causation and responsibility. (shrink)