There is increasing evidence that dynamic changes to chromatin, chromosomes and nuclear architecture are regulated by RNA signalling. Although the precise molecular mechanisms are not well understood, they appear to involve the differential recruitment of a hierarchy of generic chromatin modifying complexes and DNA methyltransferases to specific loci by RNAs during differentiation and development. A significant fraction of the genome-wide transcription of non-protein coding RNAs may be involved in this process, comprising a previously hidden layer of intermediary genetic information that (...) underpins developmental ontogeny and the differences between species, ecotypes and individuals. It is also evident that RNA editing is a primary means by which hardwired genetic information in animals can be altered by environmental signals, especially in the brain, indicating a dynamic RNA-mediated interplay between the transcriptome, the environment and the epigenome. Moreover, RNA-directed regulatory processes may also transfer epigenetic information not only within cells but also between cells and organ systems, as well as across generations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Beyond “Born this Way”Tim R. JohnstonLGBTQ liberation requires that we become more critical of “born this way” rhetoric—the political and quasi-scientific claims that sexual orientation and gender identity are immutable and intrinsic facts. Born this way rhetoric gets at a lot of feminist and queer theorists’ favorite questions: Are we born with a sex or a gender? Does sex inform gender, or is sex just gender masquerading as nature? (...) Do I have a gay gene that somehow got flipped on, or was I just around one too many dolls at a formative age?I’m going to make a case for moving away from this rhetoric, but before I go too much farther let me say that I am not interested in policing anyone’s language or restricting the terms we use to explain our experience. I think born this way rhetoric can and should be utilized by those who find it accurately expresses their experience, and if progressive arguments are strengthened by born this way rhetoric then I think it is fine, as a political and rhetorical strategy, to continue using it to demand respect.How can we be critical of this rhetoric while still deploying it for personal or strategic reasons? Doing so requires acknowledging that the nature/nurture debate is not likely to be resolved anytime soon, so let’s take a short cut, sidestep that debate entirely, and talk about how born this way rhetoric functions politically. After reading the work of Jean-Luc Nancy, I’ve started to think of born this way rhetoric as a kind of founding mythology. Nancy describes myth as self-inscribing, auto-articulating, totalizing discourse. A myth is complete and self-sufficient because it explains itself, and in so doing it also establishes the framework within which the myth is intelligible. For example, telling the Christian creation myth both [End Page 140] explains the creation of the world, while also setting up the ontological and theological framework necessary to legitimate that myth. Myth is totalizing because it controls what is deemed intelligible or reasonable discourse. As the Christian creation myth describes the foundation of the world, it also invalidates alternative discourses such as evolution, making the myth a closed circuit that both founds and perpetuates itself.Nancy argues that myths only exist in their telling, and telling a myth creates community: “Myth arises only from a community and for it: they engender one another, infinitely and immediately” (Nancy 1991, 50). The telling of a myth posits that myth as a foundation for the community that believes and retells the myth. Nancy says:Absolute community—myth—is not so much the total fusion of individuals, but the will of community: the desire to operate, through the power of myth, the communion that myth represents and that it represents as communion or communication of wills. Fusion ensues: myth represents multiple existences as immanent to its own unique fiction, which gathers them together and gives them their common figure in its speech and as this speech. This does not mean that community is a myth, that communitarian communion is a myth. It means that myth and myth’s force and foundation are essential to community and that there can be, therefore, no community outside of myth.(Nancy 1991, 57)It is the telling of a myth in a community that both installs the myth as foundation and creates the community of people who share in that myth. Nancy recognizes the importance of myth in the formation of community, but warns that its tendency to provide a complete and totalizing view of the world can lead to fascist thinking. Myths are not necessarily supple, and a community based on myth may not afford its members the opportunity to make sense of their experience apart from the logic of the foundational myth.I propose we treat born this way rhetoric as a meaningful and important mythological foundation for many LGBTQ communities, while also remaining critical of its tendency to become a dogmatic and totalizing discourse. Born this way thinking is an unproven and unprovable certainty. We do not know why people have different sexual orientations and gender identities. It is a... (shrink)

There is little doubt that our political discourse has become more polarized over the last thirty years. I argue that as radical thinkers we can turn to politeness as one way to begin working past this partisan and adversarial atmosphere. I define politeness as a self-conscious appreciation of the role of social convention in repairing and maintaining our relationships. The first section compares politeness and decency to highlight what is unique about politeness. The second section argues that politeness can be (...) considered a form of care. The third and final section describes how radical theory can use politeness to start initiating healthier dialogue. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Transgressive Translations:Parrhesia and the Politics of Being UnderstoodTim R. JohnstonAuthor And Activist Julia Serano’s spoken word poem “Performance Piece” is a smart and passionate polemic against people who say that “all gender is performance” (Serano 2010, 85). In response to those who treat gender as an endlessly mutable fiction, performance, or facade Serano says:Sure, I can perform gender: I can curtsy, or throw like a girl, or bat my (...) eyelashes. But performance doesn’t explain why certain behaviors and ways of being come to me more naturally than others. It offers no insight into the countless restless nights I spent as a pre-teen wrestling with the inexplicable feeling that I should be female. It doesn’t capture the very real physical and emotional changes that I experienced when I hormonally transitioned from testosterone to estrogen. (Serano 2010, 85–86)My first reaction to this understanding of performativity was to get defensive, immediately thinking of all the ways in which it reflects a poor reading of Judith Butler and is an incorrect use of the concept. Yet, to make that argument would mean arriving late to the party. Many theorists, notably Jay Prosser and Viviane Namaste, have made similar arguments about performativity to which Butler and many others have responded. I am not interested in joining this debate by defending or critiquing performativity; instead, I want to take seriously Serano’s criticism of the way performativity functions as a “mantra” for [End Page 84] “queerer-than-thou hipsters” (Serano 2010, 87). The fact is, concepts that help people make sense of their experience are often taken up piecemeal. They gain traction, get printed on posters, discussed in safe-spaces, taught in intro classes, and yelled at parents. They take on a life of their own and are queered again and again. It may not be anyone’s fault that performativity has come to signify a kind of insincerity, detachment from the body, linguistic constructionism, or a play of surfaces, but for many people this is exactly what it means. What follows is inspired by the questions at the heart of Serano’s poem: “Can’t we find new ways of speaking? Shouldn’t we be championing new slogans that empower all of us, whether trans or non-trans, queer or straight, female and/or male and/ or none of the above?” (Serano 2010, 87). I depart slightly from Serano insofar as I am not interested in replacing performativity as a concept. Instead, I am interested in locating other concepts that could be useful in understanding and communicating our multiple experiences of gender.Serano’s concern is not only the depth and conviction with which she experiences gender, but also the communicability of this conviction. We are social beings. We seek out the company of other people, animals, and objects. In order to flourish we need to feel understood by our surroundings. We are creatures that need to be connected, and connection requires translating our subjective experiences into a communicable, socially understandable register. How does this translation occur? How do we make ourselves understandable? What external forces regulate or influence this translation? And, crucially, how can we construct philosophical concepts that do justice to our need to feel that our interior selves are understood? What concept could we cast out into the world that might answer Serano’s call for new ways of speaking? What follows is an attempt to think through this question by looking at the relationship between the medicalization of trans people, Michel Foucault’s writings on parrhesia, and coming out.The first half of this essay examines the ways in which the medical apparatus that manages transitioning attempts to control transsexual coming-out narratives, an example of what Foucault calls biopower. I argue that the medicalization of transitioning has created a legible transsexual identity structured on the distance between our interiority and the world external to the self. The trans person’s claims about their interior sense of self are the only evidence needed to access medical technologies such as hormone therapy or surgery. But oftentimes such claims are only accepted as valid if they conform to certain scripts—scripts that are... (shrink)

This article uses the work of Eva Feder Kittay and Maurice Merleau-Ponty to advocate for LGBT-inclusive intake questions across aging network services. I argue that care providers need to know their charge's sexual orientation and/or gender identity because caring touch is responsive, meaning that the care provider understands how her touch will be perceived and can change her actions accordingly. Information about a charge's sexual orientation and/or gender identity is one important way to furnish the care provider with the information (...) she needs to calibrate effectively the expressive impact of her touch. (shrink)

Despite the amount of attention that activists, educators, psychologists, and the media place on bullying and bullying prevention, there has been no sustained philosophical reflection on bullying, nor has there been a feminist analysis of the growing literature on bullying. This essay seeks to satisfy those two needs. The first section is a broad introduction to the literature on bullying. I define bullying and distinguish it from teasing, sassing, roughhousing, and other more benign interactions. I also outline two common solutions (...) to bullying: zero-tolerance policies and “ecological” interventions. The second section uses feminist ethics of care to analyze the effectiveness of each approach. I argue that ecological approaches to bullying are preferable to zero-tolerance policies because they operate on a relational model of the self and identity-formation. I elaborate a notion of affirmation as the mechanism that stabilizes and solidifies our sense of self across time. I then use affirmation to analyze three things: why people bully one another, the specific harm inflicted by bullying, and why ecological approaches are more effective in reducing bullying. The third section uses my account of affirmation to critique the scientism and troublingly gendered assumptions that underlie much of the work on bullying. (shrink)

Labor and Global Justice combines conceptual and theoretical perspectives across a multiplicity of relevant differences, both geographical and disciplinary, to develop a transnational perspective on labor and justice and to make clear how justice requires a rethinking of the relation between labor and global capital.

Over the past decade, corporate scandals have proliferated. These scandals, along with the emergence of the #MeToo movement and Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) mandates, have increased the scrutiny of corporations’ ethics culture. How have companies responded in terms of the language appearing in their public ethics documents? We compare the Code of Ethics in 2008 versus 2019 for a sample of S&P 500 firms. For the vast majority of firms, their Code of Ethics lengthened, with the average 2019 (...) code having 29% more words (about 1760 words) than the 2008 average. The language of the codes has also changed. Words such as _bribery, corruption, sustainability, speak up, bullying, slavery,_ and _human rights_ all saw significantly higher usage in the later period. We review possible reasons for the dramatic changes and suggest what questions remain about the motivations behind them. Whether the changes we observe are primarily intrinsically motivated or simply market responses to public pressures is yet to be determined. What is clear from our findings is that society seems to be entering a new age of increasingly moral—or, at least, moralized—corporate governance. (shrink)

We build on Morgan’s deep conventionalist base by offering a pragmatic approach for achieving normative progress on sports most intractable problems (e.g. performance enhancemen...

While research has focused on financial and social goals in impact investing, we add to the limited research that focuses on how individuals manage identity multiplicity, defined as three or more role identities. Based on our qualitative study of Christian impact investors, we develop a model of identity multiplicity work, explaining how individuals manage their multiple role identities to reduce identity tensions during the process of impact investing. We find individuals engaged in an interactive, ongoing three-step process of identity multiplicity (...) work: prioritizing one of their salient identities, managing their identity multiplicity interrelationships, and reinforcing their prioritized identity. Investors generally prioritized an identity that was neither financial nor social, but rather religious. We also find this identity work implemented through three novel mechanisms: shadowing, one identity casts a shadow over another thereby enabling the simultaneous pursuit of related goals; distinguishing, all identities are retained and at least a minimum threshold of role expectations are met; and surrendering, partial sacrificing of goals of one identity in favor of another identity based on an individual’s self-reflective importance of the role. Our findings offer new insights to multiple identities, impact investing and business ethics literatures. (shrink)

Bell’s theorem is often said to imply that quantum mechanics violates local causality, and that local causality cannot be restored with a hidden-variables theory. This however is only correct if the hidden-variables theory fulfils an assumption called Statistical Independence. Violations of Statistical Independence are commonly interpreted as correlations between the measurement settings and the hidden variables. Such correlations have been discarded as “fine-tuning” or a “conspiracy”. We here point out that the common interpretation is at best physically ambiguous and at (...) worst incorrect. The problem with the common interpretation is that Statistical Independence might be violated because of a non-trivial measure in state space, a possibility we propose to call “supermeasured”. We use Invariant Set Theory as an example of a supermeasured theory that violates the Statistical Independence assumption in Bell’s theorem without requiring correlations between hidden variables and measurement settings. (shrink)

Neural engineering technologies such as implanted deep brain stimulators and brain-computer interfaces represent exciting and potentially transformative tools for improving human health and well-being. Yet their current use and future prospects raise a variety of ethical and philosophical concerns. Devices that alter brain function invite us to think deeply about a range of ethical concerns—identity, normality, authority, responsibility, privacy, and justice. If a device is stimulating my brain while I decide upon an action, am I still the author of the (...) action? Does a device make the interiority of my experience accessible to others? Will the device change the way I think of myself and others think of me? Such fundamental questions arise even when a device is designed for only a relatively circumscribed purpose, such as restoring functioning via a smart prosthetic. We are part of a National Science Foundation-funded Engineering Research Center tasked with investigating philosophical and social implications of neural engineering research and technologies. Neural devices already in clinical use, such as deep brain stimulators for Parkinson's disease or essential tremor, have spurred healthy debate about such implications. Devices currently under development—such as the BrainGate System of implanted brain sensors coupled to robotics in persons with paralysis, exoskeletons for augmented movement, transcranial do-it-yourself stimulators, closed-loop brain stimulating systems, or even brain-to-brain interfacing—promise to extend and deepen these debates. At our center, brain-computer interfaces are the principal focus of work. Even acknowledging that the clinical translation of neural devices and seamless integration by end users may still largely reside in the future, the potential these devices hold calls for careful early analysis. The launching of the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies Initiative in April 2013 provides further impetus for this work. (shrink)

Although clinical ethics consultation is a high-stakes endeavor with an increasing prominence in health care systems, progress in developing standards for quality is challenging. In this article, we describe the results of a pilot project utilizing portfolios as an evaluation tool. We found that this approach is feasible and resulted in a reasonably wide distribution of scores among the 23 submitted portfolios that we evaluated. We discuss limitations and implications of these results, and suggest that this is a significant step (...) on the pathway to an eventual certification process for clinical ethics consultants. (shrink)

This volume explores the role of some of the most prominent twentieth-century philosophers and political thinkers as teachers. It examines what obstacles they confronted as teachers and how they overcame them in conveying truth to their students in an age dominated by ideological thinking.

This paper details efforts by the Purdue School of Engineering and Technology at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis to create a single instrument for honors science, technology, engineering and mathematics students wishing to demonstrate competence in the IUPUI Principles of Undergraduate Learning and Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology Engineering Accreditation Criterion and Technology Accreditation Criterion 2, a through k. Honors courses in Human Behavior, Ethical Decision-Making, Applied Leadership, International Issues and Leadership Theories and Processes were created along with a (...) specific menu of activities and an assessment rubric based on PUL’s and ABET criteria to evaluate student performance in the aforementioned courses. Students who complete the series of 18 Honors Credit hours are eligible for an Honors Certificate in Leadership Studies from the Department of Organizational Leadership and Supervision. Finally, an accounting of how various university assessment criteria, in this case the IUPUI Principles of Undergraduate Learning, can be linked to ABET outcomes and prove student competence in both, using the aforementioned courses, menu of items, and assessment rubrics; these will be analyzed and discussed. (shrink)

BACKGROUND: There is a need for interdisciplinary research to better understand how pedagogical approaches in primary physical education (PE) can support the linked development of physical, cognitive and affective aspects of physical literacy and physical activity behaviours in young children. The Skill Acquisition Methods fostering Physical Literacy in Early-Physical Education (SAMPLE-PE) study aims to examine the efficacy of two different pedagogies for PE, underpinned by theories of motor learning, to foster physical literacy, especially for children living in disadvantaged areas. METHODS: (...) SAMPLE-PE will be evaluated through a cluster-randomised controlled trial targeting 5-6 year old children from schools located in areas of high deprivation in Merseyside, North-West England. Schools will be randomly allocated to one of three conditions: Linear Pedagogy, Nonlinear Pedagogy or Control. Nonlinear and Linear Pedagogy intervention primary schools will receive a PE curriculum delivered by trained coaches over 15 weeks, while control schools will follow their usual practice. Data will be collected at baseline (T0), immediately post-intervention (T1) and six months after the intervention has finished (T2). Children’s movement competence is the primary outcome in this trial. Secondary outcomes include physical activity, perceived competence, motivation, executive functions, and self-regulation. An extensive process evaluation will also examine implementation factors such as intervention context, reach, dose, fidelity and acceptability. DISCUSSION: The SAMPLE-PE project will enable better understanding surrounding how to operationalise physical literacy through enrichment of PE practices in early PE. The study will provide robust scientific evidence regarding the efficacy of underpinning PE pedagogy with theories of motor learning to promote the development of physical literacy. (shrink)

Reichenbach's event, reference and speech times are interpreted semantically by stringing and superposing sets of temporal formulae, structured within regular languages. Notions of continuation branches and of inertia, bound (in a precise sense) by reference time, are developed and applied to the progressive and the perfect.

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

Most computational theories of cognition lack a representation of physiology. Understanding the cognitive effects of compounds present in the environment is important for explaining and predicting changes in cognition and behavior given exposure to toxins, pharmaceuticals, or the deprivation of critical compounds like oxygen. This research integrates physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model predictions of caffeine concentrations in blood and tissues with ACT-R's fatigue module to predict the effects of caffeine on fatigue. Mapping between the PBPK model parameters and ACT-R model (...) parameters is informed by the neurophysiological literature and established associations between ACT-R modules and brain regions. The results from three such parameter mappings are explored to explain observed data from sleep-deprived participants performing the psychomotor vigilance test with and without caffeine. Predicted caffeine concentrations in the brain are used to modulate procedural parameters in the fatigue module to explain caffeine's effects on multiple performance metrics. (shrink)

How can we determine an acceptable level of risk? Should these decisions be made by experts, or by the people they affect? How should safety and security be balanced against other goods, such as liberty? This is the first collection to examine the philosophical dimensions of these pressing practical problems. Leading scholars exploring the full range of philosophical implications of risk, including: risk and ethics risk and rationality risk and scientific expertise risk and lay knowledge the objectivity of risk assessment (...) risk and the precautionary principle risk and terror. With contributions from Carl F. Cranor, Sven Ove Hansson, Martin Kusch, Tim Lewens, D.H. Mellor, Adam Morton, Stephen Perry, Martin Peterson, Alan Ryan, Per Sandin, Cass R. Sunstein and Jonathan Wolff; this collection is essential reading, not only for philosophers and researchers in legal, economic and environmental studies, but for those seeking to gain a better understanding of the decisions we must make as concerned citizens. (shrink)

This article explores the circulation of ‘anti-psychiatry’ in British film and television during the long 1960s, focusing on the controversial BBC television play In Two Minds and its cinema remake Family Life. These films were inspired by R. D. Laing's ideas on the aetiology of schizophrenia, and were understood as uniting the personal and political motivations of progressive film-makers and progressive psychiatrists. Drawing upon practitioner interviews with producer Garnett and director Loach, and extensive archival research on the production and reception (...) of these films, this article contests previous scholarship on the popular circulation of anti-psychiatry and the movement's perceived polarisation from mainstream British psychiatry. While the reception of In Two Minds and Family Life did intensify an adversarial relationship between ‘rebel’ anti-psychiatrists and hard-line behaviourists such as William Sargant, the wider psychiatric field largely welcomed the films' contributions to mental health awareness and used the publicity to counter the idea of a ‘battle’ within the profession. This included leading UK mental health organisation the National Association for Mental Health looking to Loach and Laing as models for engaging contemporary audiences as it rebranded to MIND in 1972. This article contributes to historical understandings of the complex interactions between the fields of media and mental health, as well as recent scholarship challenging the idea of a clear split between anti-psychiatry and British medical orthodoxy. (shrink)