The introduction of information technology in the society and its pervasiveness in every aspect of citizens' daily life highlight societal stakes related to the goals regarding the uses IT, such as social networks. This paper examines two cases that lack a straightforward link with privacy as addressed and protected by existing law in Europe and the United-States , but whose characteristics, we believe fall on other privacy function and properties. In Western societies, individuals rely on normative discourses, such as the (...) legal one, in order to ensure protection. Hence, the paper argues that other functions of privacy need either further framing into legislation or they need to constitute in themselves normative commitments of an ethical nature for technology development and use. Some initiatives at the EU level recall such commitments, namely by developing a normative discourse based on ethics and human values. We argue that we need to interrogate society about those normative discourses because the values we once cherished in a non-digital society are seriously being questioned. (shrink)

Lysine methylation has been traditionally associated with histones and epigenetics. Recently, lysine methyltransferases and demethylases – which are involved in methylation of non‐histone substrates – have been frequently found deregulated in human tumours. In this realm, a new discovery has unveiled the methyltransferase SMYD3 as an enhancer of Ras‐driven cancer. SMYD3 is up‐regulated in different types of tumours. SMYD3‐mediated methylation of MAP3K2 increases mutant K‐Ras‐induced activation of ERK1/2. Methylation of MAP3K2 prevents it from binding to the phosphatase PP2A, thereby impeding (...) the impact of this negative regulator on Ras‐ERK1/2 signals, leading to the formation of lung and pancreatic adenocarcinomas. Furthermore, depletion of SMYD3 synergises with a MEK inhibitor, currently in clinical trials, to block Ras‐driven pancreatic neoplasia. These results underscore the importance of lysine methylation in the regulation of signalling pathways relevant for tumourigenesis and endorse the development of drugs targeting unregulated lysine methylation as therapeutic agents in the struggle against cancer. (shrink)

As integrators of talents, Catholic family business leaders are strategically positioned to leverage the unique differences of their workforce. Business literature currently emphasizes participatory leadership as best practice. Participatory leadership is insufficient, however, because increasing the number of voices in the decision-making process may lead to higher levels of conflict or disengagement if the voices are disregarded. This paper proposes that the Catholic Social Teaching concepts of subsidiarity and solidarity provide the guiding principles to integrate participation because together they can (...) account for all stakeholders while advancing business goals. To operationalize these principles, this paper suggests that the dispute resolution field has developed analytical frameworks to assess and reimagine current policies, procedures, and culture for dispute resolution and shared decision making. Ultimately, businesses are the training ground to prepare citizens to participate in the public square and contribute to the common good. (shrink)

This paper discusses the potential of the notions of reification and consensualization as developed by the theory of social representations as analytical tools for addressing the communication between the lay and scientific spheres. Social Representations Theory started by offering an over-sharp distinction between the reified and the consensual universes of which science and common sense, respectively, were presented as paradigmatic. This paper, however, suggests that the notions of consensual and reified can be considered as describing two distinct communicative formats: reification (...) implying the use of arguments which establish prescriptions for representations and action, and consensualization relying on arguments which recognize the heterogeneity of representation and action. We illustrate this proposal through the analysis of a case in which the expert and the lay spheres of a Lisbon neighborhood opposed each other regarding the new laws of public participation in community matters. This analysis showed how reification and consensualization can be used as discursive formats by both spheres. The implications of the use of reification and consensualization and how they may depend on several power resources and have different impacts on social change are discussed. (shrink)

In this book chapter, Moya argues that recognizing, indeed mobilizing, identities in the classroom is a necessary part of educating for a just and democratic society. Only a truly multi-perspectival, multicultural education can create the conditions needed to alter the negative identity contingencies that minority students commonly face, while creating opportunities for all students. By treating identities as epistemic resources and mobilizing them, we can draw out their knowledge-generating potential and allow them to contribute positively to the production and transmission (...) of knowledge. (shrink)

As transformações a que as cidades estão sujeitas têm suscitado um discurso ambivalente sobre a cidade, um discurso que tem desenhado, não raras vezes, os seus limites na própria delimitação do espaço físico urbano. No entanto, não devemos esquecer que a revitalização da vida comunitária deverá considerar outras dimensões, compreendendo os patrimónios político, social, arquitectónico e urbanístico. Acima de tudo, a cidade contemporânea de carácter multicultural requer uma renovada urbanidade do pensamento.Propomos, então, uma abordagem que tentará, pela partilha cruzada da (...) arquitectura, do urbanismo e da filosofia, superar um entendimento estritamente utilitário da cidade, de modo a provocar e informar as novas políticas urbanísticas e os seus modelos de gestão, em ordem à civilidade, procurando reforçar o que une os saberes e não o que os separa. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Rhizomata Jahrgang: 5 Heft: 2 Seiten: 148-176.

The primary aim of this article is to point up an essential attitude, an anxiety even, that has inflected – and perhaps inhibited - our engagement with film. Film theory has been marked by a ‘refusal to see, a looking away’ (Mulvey & Wollen 1976, 36), and my suggestion is that this has achieved its fullest expression in those strands of film theory heavily influenced by psychoanalysis. These, in turn, have remained within a gendered conceptual framework whereby the discursive or (...) the narrative is associated with the masculine, and the image or spectacle is aligned with the feminine. This is not to reject these applications out of hand but rather to revisit this area with its blind spots in mind and to consider aspects that are perhaps at once obvious but often overlooked. (shrink)

Researching one's patients, colleagues or students poses a number of challenges for researchers. The example below highlights some of the assumptions that practitioners may make and the pitfalls that researchers may encounter.

This study appeared in full in the last issue of Research Ethics Review : 160). DS is researching the experiences of black Caribbean and black African people who use mental health services. The mental healthcare organization serves a diverse catchment area and senior members of staff are keen to show that they are taking the views of black services users seriously. They have, therefore appointed DS to undertake a three-year research project about black people's experiences in the catchment area. DS (...) is planning to survey statutory and voluntary organizations to map the services they provide and then use focus groups to ascertain the views and experiences of users and carers. The aim is to identify what they find most helpful, what is not helpful and how services could be improved to become more culturally-competent. (shrink)

This case study appeared in full in the last issue of Research Ethics Review : 62). It concerned an investigation of the experiences of black African people, who are HIV positive, in the UK NHS.

This case study appeared in full in the last issue of Research Ethics Review : 28). It concerned a new approach to the management of asthma in children in which there was random allocation of hospital admissions to either the untested treatment ‘B’ or the standard treatment ‘A’.

Documentary cinema is intimately tied to historical memory. Not only does it seek to reconstruct historical narrative, but it often functions as an historical document itself. Moreover, the connection between the rhetoric of documentary film and historical truth pushes the documentary into overtly political alignments which influence its audience.This essay describes and dissects the history and rhetoric of documentary cinema, tracing its various modes of address from the earliest moments of cinematic representation through its uses for ethnographers, artists, governments, and (...) marginal political organizations in the present. The different uses of documentary result in a wide variety of formal strategies to persuade the audience of a film's truth. These strategies are based on a desire to enlist the audience in the process of historical reconstruction. The documentary film differentiates itself from narrative cinema by claiming its status as a truth-telling mode. However, as a filmic construction, it relies on cinematic semiosis to convince its audience of its validity and truth. By looking at the history of documentary address, this essay outlines the rhetoric of persuasion and evaluates its effectiveness.The documentary calls upon its audience to participate in historical remembering by presenting an intimate view of reality. Through cinematic devices such as montage, voice-over, intertitles, and long takes, documentary provokes its audience to new understandings about social, economic, political, and cultural differences and struggles. The films actively engage with their world; however, often viewers respond to the same devices motivating classic Hollywood narratives. Thus the genre reinforces dominant patterns of vision.Recent challenges to the emotional manipulations of documentary deconstruct its forms and conventions so that the films interrogate not only historical memory but their own investment in its recreation. Imaginative documentaries, such as Claude Lanzmann's hoah, foreground their partial and contingent qualities, pushing viewers to question cinematic representation and its place in historical memory. Moreover, they ask audiences to think about their place in the films' meanings as well as their responsibility to the past and its interpretations. (shrink)

In recent years the sociology of literature has developed on the basis of another formula: literature is part of the larger social order. It is not the “expression of society” but an integral part of it. The idea is simple, the implications are great. Literature as part of the social order goes beyond a study of the external social manifestations of literature, beyond the sociology of the book, author, and reader practiced, for example, by Robert Escarpit—a sociology which leads inevitably (...) to a positivist outlook.5 Nor can we be satisfied with a wholesale borrowing of sociological concepts that does no more than provide the tools for arguments in favor of one or another theory of literature.6 Whatever the interest of these theories , a sociology of literature becomes possible only when it includes the sociology of the theories elaborated on the subject itself. 5. See Robert Escarpit, Sociologie de la literature . See also Escarpit et al., Le Littéraire et le social: Éléments pour une sociologie de la literature .6. Pierre V. Zima’s presentations of the sociology of literature seem to be taking him toward this failing. See Zima, Pour une sociologie du texte littéraire . Alain Viala is a professor of the Université de Paris II—Sorbonne Nouvelle. Author of Naissance de l’écrivain: Sociologie de la literature à l’âge classique and Les Institutions de la vie littéraire en France au XVIIe siècle , he is currently working on studies of the sociology of literature, Racine, and literary strategies. Paula Wissing is a free-lance translator and editor. (shrink)

A large literature documents the correlates and causes of subjective well-being, or happiness. But few studies have investigated whether people choose happiness. Is happiness all that people want from life, or are they willing to sacrifice it for other attributes, such as income and health? Tackling this question has largely been the preserve of philosophers. In this article, we find out just how much happiness matters to ordinary citizens. Our sample consists of nearly 13,000 members of the UK and US (...) general populations. We ask them to choose between, and make judgments over, lives that are high in different types of happiness and low in income, physical health, family, career success, or education. We find that people by and large choose the life that is highest in happiness but health is by far the most important other concern, with considerable numbers of people choosing to be healthy rather than happy. We discuss some possible reasons for this preference. (shrink)

This chapter examines the main issues in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. The discussions cover his views on happiness, virtues of character, virtues of thought, moral responsibility, moral dilemmas, practical reasoning, choice, akrasia, pleasure, and friendship.

The exclusive emphasis on academic excellence in our schools today does not necessarily translate into excellence of character or lend our students an ethical disposition. Thus, I include ethics instruction to young people who will one day become the citizens and leaders of tomorrow. Because ethics invokes questions that consider morals, values, and principles, and because it seeks to consider and respect alternate perspectives, I believe that ethics knowledge is essential to maintaining a civilized society. This essay will share some (...) of the philosophy and methods that I have used successfully with middle-level students to help them reflect upon what it means to be ethical human beings and good citizens—in addition to supporting their efforts to achieve academic excellence. (shrink)