The objectives of this study were to develop a high-density chromosome bin map of homoeologous group 7 in hexaploid wheat, to identify gene distribution in these chromosomes, and to perform comparative studies of wheat with rice and barley. We mapped 2148 loci from 919 EST clones onto group 7 chromosomes of wheat. In the majority of cases the numbers of loci were significantly lower in the centromeric regions and tended to increase in the distal regions. The level of duplicated loci (...) in this group was 24% with most of these loci being localized toward the distal regions. One hundred nineteen EST probes that hybridized to three fragments and mapped to the three group 7 chromosomes were designated landmark probes and were used to construct a consensus homoeologous group 7 map. An additional 49 probes that mapped to 7AS, 7DS, and the ancestral translocated segment involving 7BS also were designated landmarks. Landmark probe orders and comparative maps of wheat, rice, and barley were produced on the basis of corresponding rice BAC/PAC and genetic markers that mapped on chromosomes 6 and 8 of rice. Identification of landmark ESTs and development of consensus maps may provide a framework of conserved coding regions predating the evolution of wheat genomes. (shrink)

Background In their paper “Research approvals iceberg: how a ‘low-key’ study in England needed 89 professionals to approve it and how we can do better” Petrova and Barclay highlight concerns with the health research regulatory environment in the UK. Discussion As long-standing chairs of NHS research ethics committees, researchers, and also academics in research ethics, we are also often frustrated with the regulatory process in the UK. However, we think that Petrova and Barclay’s analysis is misleading because it conflates research (...) ethics with governance and funding processes, thus failing to adequately distinguish between the national coordinating function of the Health Research Authority, local research governance processes, and interactions with research sponsors and/or the Clinical Research Network. (shrink)

In the management and organization studies literature, a key question to explore and explain is that of the family as an organizational stakeholder, particularly when working-from-home became the “new normal”. Departing from meta-analytic studies on the work-family relation and connecting with scholarly conversation on work-family boundary dynamics, we identify three main narratives. In the _separation narrative,_ work and family belong to different realms, and including the family in the domain of organizational responsibility is seen as pointless. The _interdependence narrative_ stresses (...) that organizations and families are overlapping domains in which it is important to acknowledge that the policies and practices of the former might have an impact on family life, and vice-versa. The _embeddedness narrative_, brought to the fore by the COVID-19 pandemic, sees employment and family as progressively convergent and hybrid work domains. The evolution of employment relations towards increased hybridity of the work situation being embedded in the familial/household context increasingly calls for consideration of the family/household as an integral rather than a peripheral stakeholder. (shrink)

Valid consent requires the potential research participant understands the information provided. We examined current practice in 50 proposed Clinical Trials of Investigational Medicinal Products to determine how this understanding is checked. The majority of the proposals ( n = 44) indicated confirmation of understanding would take place during an interactive conversation between the researcher and potential participant, containing questions to assess and establish understanding. Yet up until now, research design and review have not focussed upon this, concentrating more on written (...) material. We propose ways this interactive conversation can be documented, and the process of checking understanding improved. (shrink)

In 2016, Béziau introduces a restricted notion of paraconsistency, the so-called genuine paraconsistency. A logic is genuine paraconsistent if it rejects the laws $\varphi,\neg \varphi \vdash \psi$ and $\vdash \neg (\varphi \wedge \neg \varphi)$. In that paper, the author analyzes, among the three-valued logics, which of them satisfy this property. If we consider multiple-conclusion consequence relations, the dual properties of those above-mentioned are $\vdash \varphi, \neg \varphi$ and $\neg (\varphi \vee \neg \varphi) \vdash$. We call genuine paracomplete logics those rejecting (...) the mentioned properties. We present here an analysis of the three-valued genuine paracomplete logics. A very natural twist structures semantics for these logics is also found in a systematic way. This semantics produces automatically a simple and elegant Hilbert-style characterization for all these logics. Finally, we introduce the logic LGP which is genuine paracomplete is not genuine paraconsistent, not even paraconsistent and cannot be characterized by a single finite logical matrix. (shrink)

This book brings together scholars from a variety of epistemological perspectives to explore the multiple ways in which sexuality does indeed matter in the arena of public education.

BackgroundWe conducted a survey to identify what types of health/medical research could be exempt from research ethics reviews in Australia.MethodsWe surveyed Australian health/medical researchers and Human Research Ethics Committee members. The survey asked whether respondents had previously changed or abandoned a project anticipating difficulties obtaining ethics approval, and presented eight research scenarios, asking whether these scenarios should or should not be exempt from ethics review, and to provide comments. Qualitative data were analysed thematically; quantitative data in R.ResultsWe received 514 responses. (...) Forty-three per cent of respondents to whom the question applied, reported changing projects in anticipation of obstacles from the ethics review process; 25% reported abandoning projects for this reason. Research scenarios asking professional staff to provide views in their area of expertise were most commonly exempted from ethics review ; scenarios involving surplus samples and N-of-1 studies were most commonly required to undergo ethics review. HREC members were 26% more likely than researchers to require ethics review. Need for independent oversight, and low risk, were most frequently cited in support of decisions to require or exempt from ethics review, respectively.ConclusionsConsiderable differences exist between researchers and HREC members, about when to exempt from review the research that ultimately serves the interests of patients and the public. It is widely accepted that evaluative research should be used to reduce clinical uncertainties—the same principle should apply to ethics reviews. (shrink)

The Creative Citizenship project was founded to promote critical, ethical, and creative thinking in early childhood, and to recognize and encourage children as social actors and peacebuilders. In concert with the methodology of North American philosopher Matthew Lipman's Philosophy for Children (P4C), Creative Citizenship seeks to promote in children the ability to think critically, ethically, and creatively in and from their own realities, and to exercise multidimensional thinking skills in the various areas of their daily lives. The research documented here (...) adopted a qualitative approach in so far as it sought to inquire about the character of those relationships, particularly among boys and girls, that promote their identity as social agents. As such, it examined training processes and generated theoretical perspectives in the interest of promoting social transformation through the empowerment of multidimensional thinking. The article begins with a review of the concept of Creative Citizenship and ends with that of Peacebuilding. Three theoretical categories have been applied in order to situate the inquiry within the framework of the realities of childhood, and to chart the pedagogical interventions by adults that occurred throughout the implementation of the project. The first focuses on the development of children’s thinking per se, the second on children's capacities for creative problem-solving in social environments, and the third on the concept of peacebuilding as a commitment to practicing philosophical dialogue among children, which is understood as a form of discourse that builds the capacities of citizens to undertake individual and collective actions that allow them, in turn, to create and re-create scenarios of peaceful coexistence. (shrink)

Cancer is a singular cellular state, the emergence of which destabilises the homeostasis reached through the evolution to multicellularity. We present the idea that the onset of the cellular disobedience to the metazoan functional and structural architecture, known as the cancer phenotype, is triggered by changes in the cell's external environment that occur with ageing: what ensues is a breach of the social contract of multicellular life characteristic of metazoans. By integrating old ideas with new evidence, we propose that with (...) ageing the environmental information that maintains a multicellular organisation is eroded, rewiring internal processes of the cell, and resulting in an internal shift towards an ancestral condition resulting in the pseudo‐multicellular cancer phenotype. Once that phenotype emerges, a new local social contract is built, different from the homeostatic one, leading to tumour formation and the foundation of a novel local ecosystem. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the moral dimensions of gender affirmation. I argue that the moral value of gender affirmation is rooted in what Iris Murdoch called loving attention. Loving attention is central to the moral value of gender affirmation because such affirmation is otherwise too fragile or insincere to have such value. Moral reasons to engage in acts that gender affirm derive from the commitment to give and express loving attention to trans people as a way of challenging their (...) marginalization. In the latter part of the paper, I will discuss how my arguments bear on recent arguments by Robin Dembroff and Daniel Wodak (2018) on the use of gender-neutral language. They argue that we have a duty not to use gender-specific pronouns for anyone. Their conclusion turns, in part, on a rejection of gender affirmation as a moral duty. The value of gender affirmation, rooted in our moral perception of trans people, should make us skeptical of this conclusion, in favor of a more nuanced and pluralistic approach to the ethics of gendering. (shrink)