Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by social/communicative difficulties and perseverative behaviours. While research on autism has flourished recently, few studies have been conducted on the disorder in non‐Western contexts. In low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs), biomedical research on autism is required to better understand the needs of the population and to develop contextually appropriate interventions. However, autistic individuals are a vulnerable study population and LMICs present with various considerations. While the presentation of autism is heterogeneous, stigma (...) is a common social consequence affecting research. Drawing specifically on the South African context, the ethical intersections of these issues are discussed, along with the limitations of the current informed consent process. Community engagement is recommended as an adjunct to informed consent to ensure that biomedical research is conducted in a more inclusive way. Practical pointers are provided for implementing systematic support for conducting community engagement alongside biomedical research. (shrink)

Sir Ernst Gombrich and the Barber from Tuscany In the spirit of Sir Ernst Gombrich, this essay uses an anecdote—a chat between Gombrich and a barber from Tuscany—to illustrate a deeper point, namely, how cultural memory, tradition, and a canon give rise to an implied language of culture and cultural value. Gombrich staunchly defended tradition against relativism. By relativism, he meant something like "radical subjectivism." To his mind, subjectivism (in the cultural and social sense of the term) is not only (...) impossible, since meaning is conferred through culture and society, but it is also dangerous (in the cultural and ethical sense of the term), since it denies the existence of shared values. Against consensus on the one hand and radical subjectivism on the other, Gombrich advocated a middle way: criticism and self-criticism to ensure latitude; the search for "truth" to ensure a limited plurality of interpretations. (shrink)

Ethical approval must be obtained before medical research can start. We describe the differences in EA for an pseudonymous, non-interventional, observational European study. Sixteen European national coordinators of the international study on very old intensive care patients answered an online questionnaire concerning their experience getting EA. N = 8/16 of the NCs could apply at one single national ethical committee, while the others had to apply to various regional ECs and/or individual hospital institutional research boards. The time between applying for (...) EA and the first decision varied between 7 days and 300 days. In 9/16 informed consent from the patient was not deemed necessary; in 7/16 informed consent was required from the patient or relatives. The upload of coded data to a central database required additional information in 14/16. In 4/16 the NCs had to ask separate approval to keep a subject identification code list to de-pseudonymize the patients if questions would occur. Only 2/16 of the NCs agreed that informed consent was necessary for this observational study. Overall, 6/16 of the NCs were satisfied with the entire process and 8/16 were unsatisfied. 11/16 would welcome a European central EC that would judge observational studies for all European countries. Variations in the process and prolonged time needed to get EA for observational studies hampers inclusion of patients in some European countries. This might have a negative influence on the external validity. Further harmonization of ethical approval process across Europe is welcomed for low-risk observational studies. Getting ethical approval for low-risk, non-interventional, observational studies varies enormously across European countries. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose the concept of controversing as an approach for engaging citizens in debates around the datafied city and in shaping responsible smart cities that incorporate diverse public values. Controversing addresses the engagement of citizens in discussions about the datafication of urban life by productively deploying controversies around data. Attempts to engage citizens in the smart city frequently involve ‘neutral’ data visualisations aimed at making abstract sociotechnical issues more tangible. In addition, citizens are meant to gather around (...) issues already defined externally by others. Instead, we focus on how people might become engaged and develop the capacity to shape alternative urban futures. We suggest that making controversial apparently less contentious issues in the smart city allows people to identify their own issues, come together temporarily as a public, imagine alternative possibilities and thus develop capacities for action. In this context, controversies can act as agents of change and open up new spaces for participation and action. We develop the notion of controversing as a deliberate strategy of making datafication controversial, and operationalise the term along the dimensions of recontextualisation, meaning-making and agency. We then look at two cases from the mid-sized city of Amersfoort in the Netherlands, first to test the conceptual potential of controversing to expose how frictions shape citizen engagement, and second to analyse how controversing may frame design-oriented methods aimed at involving diverse participants in discussing datafication and defining public values in the datafied smart city. (shrink)

Worldwide there are substantial differences within and between countries in aggression and violence. Although there are various exceptions, a general rule is that aggression and violence increase as one moves closer to the equator, which suggests the important role of climate differences. While this pattern is robust, theoretical explanations for these large differences in aggression and violence within countries and around the world are lacking. Most extant explanations focus on the influence of average temperature as a factor that triggers aggression, (...) or the notion that warm temperature allows for more social interaction situations in which aggression is likely to unfold. We propose a new model, CLimate, Aggression, and Self-control in Humans, that helps us to understand differences within and between countries in aggression and violence in terms of differences in climate. Lower temperatures, and especially larger degrees of seasonal variation in climate, call for individuals and groups to adopt a slower life history strategy, a greater focus on the future, and a stronger focus on self-control. The CLASH model further outlines that slow life strategy, future orientation, and strong self-control are important determinants of inhibiting aggression and violence. We also discuss how CLASH differs from other recently developed models that emphasize climate differences for understanding conflict. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and societal importance of climate in shaping individual and societal differences in aggression and violence. (shrink)

In his posthumously published Living Up to Death Paul Ricoeur left an impressive testimony on what it means to live at a high old age with death approaching. In this article I present him as a teacher who reminds us of valuable lessons taught by patients in palliative care and their caretakers who accompany them on their way to death, and also as a guide in our search for a modern ars moriendi, after—what many at least experience as—the breakdown of (...) traditional religious belief in a personal afterlife. These lessons can be summarized in the following theses. ‘Living up to death, one cannot experience one’s own death. Therefore, never consider someone dying as moribund’. ‘Though everybody is alone in dying, nobody should die alone.’ ‘The preparation for death is an affirmation of life’. ‘Life experienced as a gift can be given up’. The plausibility of the last thesis, however, may go beyond the confines of austere philosophical thinking. (shrink)

In 1984, Danecki proved that satisfiability in IPDL, i.e., Propositional Dynamic Logic (PDL) extended with an intersection operator on programs, is decidable in deterministic double exponential time. Since then, the exact complexity of IPDL has remained an open problem: the best known lower bound was the ExpTime one stemming from plain PDL until, in 2004, the first author established ExpSpace-hardness. In this paper, we finally close the gap and prove that IPDL is hard for 2-ExpTime, thus 2-ExpTime-complete. We then sharpen (...) our lower bound, showing that it even applies to IPDL without the test operator interpreted on tree structures. (shrink)

In the last five years there have been a number of results about the computable content of the prime, saturated, or homogeneous models of a complete decidable theory T in the spirit of Vaught's "Denumerable models of complete theories" combined with computability methods for degrees d ≤ 0′. First we recast older results by Goncharov, Peretyat'kin, and Millar in a more modern framework which we then apply. Then we survey recent results by Lange, "The degree spectra of homogeneous models," which (...) generalize the older results and which include positive results on when a certain homogeneous model of T has an isomorphic copy of a given Turing degree. We then survey Lange's "A characterization of the 0-basis homogeneous bounding degrees" for negative results about when does not have such copies, generalizing negative results by Goncharov, Peretyat'kin, and Millar. Finally, we explain recent results by Csima, Harizanov, Hirschfeldt, and Soare, "Bounding homogeneous models," about degrees d that are homogeneous bounding and explain their relation to the PA degrees. (shrink)

The ArgumentAmerican eugenics developed out of a cultural tradition independent of medicine. However, the eugenicist Harry Hamilton Laughlin and some legal experts involved in eugenic practice in the United States used medical language in discussing and evaluating enforced eugenic sterilizations. They built on medicine as a model for healing, while at the same time playing down medicine's concern with its traditional client: the individual patient. Laughlin's attitude toward medicine was ambivalent because he wanted expert eugenicists, rather than medical experts, to (...) control eugenic practice. In contrast, legal experts saw eugenics as an integral part of medicine, though one expert challenged basing the judicial system on eugenically minded medicine. All in all, the medicalization of American eugenics involved expanding the scope of medicine to include the mutilation of individuals for the benefit of society. The judicial system was medicalized in that an expanded medicine became the basis of legislation in the thirty states that permitted eugenic sterilizations. (shrink)

Philippa Lang - Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity: Doctors and Philosophers on Nature, Soul, Health and Disease - Journal of the History of Philosophy 45:1 Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.1 151-152 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Philippa Lang Emory University Philip van der Eijk. Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity: Doctors and Philosophers on Nature, Soul, Health and Disease. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. xiv + 404. Cloth, $95.00. This immaculately (...) edited volume usefully collects ten significant articles by van der Eijk, together with one chapter based on other previously published material. They appear here slightly revised,.. (shrink)

The philosopher Enrique Dussel offers a critical analysis of European construction of indigenous peoples which he calls "transmodern." His theory is especially relevant to feminist and other concerns about the potential disabling effects of postmodern approaches for political action and the development of theory. Dussel divides modernity into two concurrent paradigms. Reflection on them suggests that modernism and postmodernism should not be too strongly distinguished. In conclusion, his approach is compared with that of Mohanty.

The pandemic has impacted various industries, including the sports industry. However, corporate social responsibility can mitigate the adverse effects of the crisis and promote the sports industry. To analyze the effect of CSR, the study examined the impact of perceived corporate social responsibility on injury prevention expectation, injury risk perception, and health up-gradation with the mediation of sports safety measures. There are 259 sportsmen of local sports bodies provided the data through a self-administered survey. Data analysis was conducted through Smart-PLS (...) and SEM techniques. The outcome of the analysis showed that perceived corporate social responsibility leads to injury prevention expectation, injury risk perception, and health up-gradation. Also, the study found that sports safety measure mediates the relationship between perceived corporate social responsibility and injury prevention expectation, between perceived corporate social responsibility and injury risk perception, and between perceived corporate social responsibility and health up-gradation among sportsmen of local sports bodies. The theoretical implications were presented related to the significance of CSR and sports safety measure and their impact on sportsmen injury prevention expectation, health, and risk perception. The practical implications were related to the management of local sports bodies and how they can induce CSR initiatives and programs. Some limitations related to sample size, incorporating other variables, examining the model in other contexts, and using different study designs, have also been mentioned in the study. (shrink)

[1] Xian Qin juan (shang) -- [2] Xian Qin juan (xia) -- [3] Qin Han juan -- [4] Wei Jin Nan Bei chao juan (shang) -- [5] Wei Jin Nan Bei chao juan (xia) -- [6] Sui Tang Wu dai juan (shang) -- [7] Sui Tang Wu dai juan (xia) -- [8] Song Liao Jin juan (shang) -- [9] Song Liao Jin juan (xia) -- [10] Yuan dai juan -- [11] Ming dai juan (shang) -- [12] Ming dai juan (zhong) (...) -- [13] Ming dai juan (xia) -- [14] Qing dai juan (shang) -- [15] Qing dai juan (zhong) -- [16] Qing dai juan (xia) -- [17] Jin dai juan (shang) -- [18] Jin dai juan (xia) -- [19] Suo yin juan. (shrink)

New targets for brain tumor therapies may be identified by mutations that cause hereditary microcephaly. Brain growth depends on the repeated proliferation of stem and progenitor cells. Microcephaly syndromes result from mutations that specifically impair the ability of brain progenitor or stem cells to proliferate, by inducing either premature differentiation or apoptosis. Brain tumors that derive from brain progenitor or stem cells may share many of the specific requirements of their cells of origin. These tumors may therefore be susceptible to (...) disruptions of the protein products of genes that are mutated in microcephaly. The potential for the products of microcephaly genes to be therapeutic targets in brain tumors are highlighted hereby reviewing research on EG5, KIF14, ASPM, CDK6, and ATR. Treatments that disrupt these proteins may open new avenues for brain tumor therapy that have increased efficacy and decreased toxicity. -/- . (shrink)

This paper develops a theoretical model to explicate stakeholder-related mechanisms that affect university adoption of sustainability in curricula. This work combines stakeholder and institutional theories so as to extend both. By examining change in the university context wherein there is confusion about sustainability adoption, this research adds to previous institutional theory focusing on strongly contested practices, primarily in the for-profit firm setting. Sustainability is a transformational challenge and may be adopted reactively or proactively. Also, stakeholder theory is extended in a (...) mixed profit and non-profit context. Propositions suggest how the extent of embeddedness affects an organizations’ selection of stakeholders, consequently affecting the type of adoption. This facilitates a greater understanding of why two competing definitions of stakeholders may operate. Moreover, extrinsic and intrinsic motivations are discussed as affecting adoption in different ways. A responsible leader organization is newly defined and intrinsic motivation is proposed as underlying its choice of the widest set of stakeholders leading to broad, proactive adoption. (shrink)