Two lines of evidence indicate that there exists a reciprocal inhibitory relationship between opposed brain networks. First, most attention-demanding cognitive tasks activate a stereotypical set of brain areas, known as the task-positive network and simultaneously deactivate a different set of brain regions, commonly referred to as the task negative or defaultmode network. Second, functional connectivity analyses show that these same opposed networks are anti-correlated in the resting state. Wehypothesize that these reciprocally inhibitory effects reflect two incompatible cognitive modes, each of (...) which may be directed towards understanding the external world. Thus, engaging onemode activates one set of regions and suppresses activity in the other.Wetest this hypothesis by identifying two types of problem-solving task which, on the basis of prior work, have been consistently associated with the task positive and task negative regions: tasks requiring social cognition, i.e., reasoning about the mental states of other persons, and tasks requiring physical cognition, i.e., reasoning about the causal/mechanical properties of inanimate objects. Social and mechanical reasoning tasks were presented to neurologically normal participants during fMRI. Each task type was presented using both text and video clips. Regardless of presentation modality, we observed clear evidence of reciprocal suppression: social tasks deactivated regions associated with mechanical reasoning and mechanical tasks deactivated regions associated with social reasoning. These findings are not explained by self-referential processes, task engagement, mental simulation,mental time travel or external vs. internal attention, all factors previously hypothesized to explain default mode network activity. Analyses of resting state data revealed a close match between the regions our tasks identified as reciprocally inhibitory and regions of maximal anti-correlation in the resting state. These results indicate the reciprocal inhibition is not attributable to constraints inherent in the tasks, but is neural in origin. Hence, there is a physiological constraint on our ability to simultaneously engage two distinct cognitive modes. Furtherwork is needed tomore precisely characterize these opposing cognitive domains. (shrink)

A restrictive view of self-control identifies exercises of self-control with synchronic intrapsychic processes, and pictures diachronic and externally-scaffolded strategies not as proper instances of self-control, but as clever ways of avoiding the need to exercise that ability. In turn, defenders of an inclusive view of self-control typically argue that we should construe self-control as more than effortful inhibition, and that, on grounds of functional equivalence, all these diverse strategies might be properly described as instances of self-control. In this paper, (...) I take a fresh look at this debate by focusing on cases of addiction. I argue that addicted agents face a paradigmatic sort of self-control challenge, which makes addiction an important test case for theories of self-control. And I discuss evidence that highlights both the unreliability of synchronic intrapsychic strategies and the crucial role that is played by diachronic and externally-scaffolded strategies in successful attempts at achieving abstinence by addicted individuals. Abstaining addicts are a paradigmatic case of agents who successfully exercise self-control, and they mostly do so by relying on diachronic and externally-scaffolded strategies. This, I argue, lends further support to an inclusive view of self-control. (shrink)

One observes regulation at every biological level. Organisms, cells, and biochemical processes operate efficiently, normally wasting neither material nor energy, and adjusting their functions to external influences. Nature evidently has evolved mechanisms specifically dedicated to regulation at many levels. What is the molecular basis of this control?In the 1950s these molecular control mechanisms began to be explored seriously. The discoveries of feedback inhibition of enzyme activity were important because they gave an initial example of how regulation is achieved (...) at the molecular level. We showed that certain enzymes are composed of two parts, one for catalysis and another distinct part present only to regulate this catalysis. Catalytic activity can be either stimulated or inhibited when a small molecule in the environment combines with the enzyme's regulatory site. In particular, a final product of a metabolic pathway generates a feedback loop which automatically limits its own excessive production, by combining with the regulatory site of an early enzyme in that pathway. Later studies showed that catalytic and regulatory structures of some enzymes could be separated physically.The discovery of regulatory sites and their interaction with molecules unrelated to their substrates was the basis for the generalized allosteric concept. This concept extends the regulatory site idea to a wide variety of processes such as control of gene expression, hormone action, and cellular growth. (shrink)

By highlighting the logico-metaphysical undergirding of Hegel's discussion of the market, this article brings to light certain proto-Marxist or proto-socialist tendencies in Hegel as well as key disagreements with Adam Smith, which have been missed by recent studies like Herzog's Inventing the Market (2013). For Smith, market laws function like an impartial arbiter that rewards honest effort; his main worry is that individuals may fail to display virtues like honesty, probity and frugality, thereby hindering the smooth functioning of the market (...) mechanism. For Hegel, by contrast, the market is a de-personalized player in its own right that imposes its arbitrary rule, a rule that does not reflect in any way the virtues and efforts of market participants. This assessment is easily overlooked, unless one realizes that Hegel believes the market to be functioning according to the structures that he discusses in the ‘Objectivity’ section in his Science of Logic. As a consequence of this assessment Hegel attributes a different role to the state than Smith does: Rather than aiding and shaping individuals, by means of institutions, education and health care, the state needs to address the structural functioning of market laws and, to some extent, inhibit its free-flowing functioning. Individuals need to re-appropriate their own social relations by organizing them along the lines of the logical organism or internal teleology. After outlining Hegel's interpretation and assessment of the market structures with the help of the Logic, I will discuss Hegel's demand for an organic state, that sublates and oversees the market, thereby safeguarding the important personal freedoms enjoyed by market participants. (shrink)

This article provides the foundation for a new predictive theory of animal learning that is based upon a simple logical model. The knowledge of experimental subjects at a given time is described using logical equations. These logical equations are then used to predict a subject’s response when presented with a known or a previously unknown situation. This new theory suc- cessfully anticipates phenomena that existing theories predict, as well as phenomena that they cannot. It provides a theoretical account for phenomena (...) that are beyond the domain of existing models, such as extinction and the detection of novelty, from which “external inhibition” can be explained. Examples of the methods applied to make predictions are given using previously published results. The present theory proposes a new way to envision the minimal functions of the nervous system, and provides possible new insights into the way that brains ultimately create and use knowledge about the world. (shrink)

External cues and internal configuration states are the likely instigators of involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs) and déjà vu experience. Indeed, Barzykowski and Moulin discuss relevant neuroscientific evidence in this direction. A complementary line of enquiry and evidence is the study of inhibition and its role in memory retrieval, and particularly how its (dys)function may contribute to IAMs and déjà vu.

The paper first introduces the concept of implicit and explicit temporality, referring to time as pre-reflectively lived vs. consciously experienced. Implicit time is based on the constitutive synthesis of inner time consciousness on the one hand, and on the conative–affective dynamics of life on the other hand. Explicit time results from an interruption or negation of implicit time and unfolds itself in the dimensions of present, past and future. It is further shown that temporality, embodiment and intersubjectivity are closely connected: (...) While implicit temporality is characterised by tacit bodily functioning and by synchronisation with others, explicit temporality arises with states of desynchronisation, that is, of a retardation or acceleration of inner time in relation to external or social processes. These states often bring the body to awareness as an obstacle as well. On this basis, schizophrenia and melancholic depression are investigated as paradigm cases for a psychopathology of temporality. Major symptoms of schizophrenia such as thought disorder, thought insertion, hallucinations or passivity experiences may be regarded as manifesting a disturbance of the constitutive synthesis of time consciousness, closely connected with a weakening of the underlying pre-reflective self-awareness or ipseity. This results in a fragmentation of the intentional arc, a loss of self-coherence and the appearance of major self-disturbances. Depression, on the other hand, is mostly triggered by a desynchronisation from the social environment and further develops into an inhibition of the conative–affective dynamics of life. As will be shown, both mental illnesses bear witness of the close connection of temporality, embodiment and intersubjectivity. (shrink)

We argue that the rapid eye movement dream experiences owe their structure and meaning to inherent self-organizing properties of the brain itself. Thus, we offer a common meeting ground for brain based studies of dreaming and traditional psychological dream theory. Our view is that the dreaming brain is a self-organizing system highly sensitive to internally generated influences. Several lines of evidence support a process view of the brain as a system near the edge of chaos, one that is highly sensitive (...) to internal influences. Such sensitivity is due to several factors. First, the dreaming brain normally gates out external input and thus operates without the stabilizing influences of external feedback. Second, the pre-frontal cortex is only minimally activated during REM sleep, and hence the brain operates with weakened volition, reduced logic, and diminished self-reflection. Third, because the neuromodulatory inhibition mechanism is turned off during REM, the brain responds spontaneously to the least provocation. In addition, the dreaming brain is also subject to powerful intermittent cholinergic stimulation which may stimulate creative patterns of dream activity. (shrink)

Under what conditions does machine learning (ML) model opacity inhibit the possibility of explaining and understanding phenomena? In this article, I argue that nonepistemic values give shape to the ML opacity problem even if we keep researcher interests fixed. Treating ML models as an instance of doing model-based science to explain and understand phenomena reveals that there is (i) an external opacity problem, where the presence of inductive risk imposes higher standards on externally validating models, and (ii) an internal (...) opacity problem, where greater inductive risk demands a higher level of transparency regarding the inferences the model makes. (shrink)

A technique for the bilateral activation of neural nets that leads to a functional asymmetry of two simulated ''cerebral hemispheres'' is described. The simulation is designed to perform object recognition, while exhibiting characteristics typical of human consciousness-specifically, the unitary nature of conscious attention, together with a dual awareness corresponding to the ''nucleus'' and ''fringe'' described by William James (1890). Sensory neural nets self-organize on the basis of five sensory features. The system is then taught arbitrary symbolic labels for a small (...) number of similar stimuli. Finally, the trained network is exposed to nonverbal stimuli for object recognition, leading to Gaussian activation of the ''sensory'' maps-with a peak at the location most closely related to the features of the external stimulus. ''Verbal'' maps are activated most strongly at the labeled location that lies closest to the peak on homologous sensory maps. On the verbal maps activation is characterized by both excitatory and inhibitory Gaussians (a Mexican hat), the parameters of which are determined by the relative locations of the verbal labels. Mutual homotopic inhibition across the ''corpus callosum'' then produces functional cerebral asymmetries, i.e., complementary activation of homologous ''association'' and ''frontal'' maps within a common focus of attention-a nucleus in the left hemisphere and a fringe in the right hemisphere. An object is recognized as corresponding to a known label when the total activation of both hemispheres (nucleus plus fringe) is strongest for that label. The functional dualities of the cerebral hemispheres are discussed in light of the nucleus/fringe asymmetry. (shrink)

This paper explores moral sensitivity in a learning perspective, and a framework is developed for the understanding of how moral sensitivity can be developed through reiterative problem solving in the face of diverse ethical problems. Factors that may inhibit the individual's ability to conceive of moral issues are discussed, and perspectives from moral psychology are integrated with theory on problem formulation. It is argued that (1) the individual's moral sensitivity is pivotal for ethical problem solving, because problem formulation is paramount (...) for further reflection and behaviour; (2) ethical behaviour must be understood both (a) in terms of the individual's psychological make‐up that determines psychological response to moral features and (b) in terms of external constraints on the individual's moral sensitivity; and (3) the development of moral sensitivity can be promoted by actively and consciously pursuing disciplined imagination in multi‐perspective formulations of problems. (shrink)

In my paper, I develop a phenomenological and pragmatist reflection on the fragility of liberal democracy’s moral foundations in times of war. Following Judith Shklar’s conception of the “liberalism of fear”, the legitimacy of the liberal-democratic order is seen as grounded in experiences of suffering caused by political violence. It is also assumed that the liberalism of fear delivers an adequate conception of the normative foundations of the European project. With the help of phenomenologists such as Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty (...) and Michel Henry, the paper ants to philosophically deepen the liberalism of fear by outlining a theory of “pathic evidence” as a normative foundation and the concept of a common “flesh of the political” as a shared moral sensitivity that sets boundaries to political conflict as well as the political imaginary, excluding what I call the production of “monumental meaning”. It then examines the question which political conditions are needed for this evidence to become a shared, communal criteria of ethical thought, and considers inner and outer challenges to the transmission and reproduction of this evidence in time, drawing especially on John Dewey’s ideas of democratic communication and social intelligence. In the current war, the following problem appears as crucial for the “soul” of European democracies which are confronted with the need to respond to Russia’s attack: How can a political morality grounded in pathic evidence be sustained, once it is challenged by an aggressor who, out of cultural and political reasons, shows a higher level of toleration towards violence? Besides aggression from an external foe, there are also temporal dynamics that further the loss of the inhibiting force of pathic evidence from the inside. As it shall be argued, boredom can be such a factor. The paper concludes by drawing conclusions for the current war in Ukraine. (shrink)

This essay presents a point of view for looking at `free will', with the purpose of interpreting where exactly the freedom lies. For, freedom is what we mean by it. It compares the exercise of free will with the making of inferences, which usually is predominantly inductive in nature. The making of inference and the exercise of free will, both draw upon psychological resources that define our ‘selves’. I examine the constitution of the self of an individual, especially the involvement (...) of personal beliefs, personal memories, affects, emotions, and the hugely important psychological value-system, all of which distinguish the self of one individual from that of another. The foundational position that adopted in this essay is that all psychological processes are correlated with corresponding ones involving large scale neural aggregates in the brain, communicating with one another through wavelike modes of excitation and de-excitation. Of central relevance is the value-network around which the affect system is organized, the latter, in turn, being the axis around which is assembled the self, with all its emotional correlates. The self is a complex system. I include a brief outline of what complexity consists of. In reality all systems are complex, for complexity is ubiquitous, and certain parts of nature appear to us to be ‘simple’ only in certain specific contexts. It is in this background that the issue of determinism is viewed in this essay. Instead of looking at determinism as a grand principle entrenched in nature independent of our interpretation of it, I look at our ability to explain and to predict events and phenomena around us, which is made possible by the existence of causal links running in a complex course that set up correlations between diverse parts of nature, in this way putting the stamp of necessity on these events. However, the complexity of systems limits our ability to explain and to predict to within certain horizons defined by contexts. Our ability to explain and predict in matters relating to acts of free will is similarly limited by the operations of the self that remain hidden from our own awareness. The aspects of necessity and determinism appear to us in the form of reason and rationality that explain and predict only within a limited horizon, while the rest depends on the complex operation of self-linked psychological resources, where the latter appear as contingent in the context of the exercise of free will. The hallmark of complex systems is the existence of amplifying factors that operate as destabilizing ones, along with inhibiting or stabilizing factors as well that generally limit the destabilizing influences to local occurrences, while preserving the global integrity of a system. This complex interplay of destabilizing and stabilizing influences lead to the possibility of an enormous number of distinct modes of behavior that appear as emergent phenomena in complex systems. Looking at the particular case of the self of an individual that guide her actions and thoughts, it is the operation of our emotions, built around the psychological value-system, that provide for the amplifying and inhibiting factors mentioned above. The operation of these self-linked factors stamps our actions and thoughts as contingent ones that do not fit with our concepts of reason and rationality. And this is what provides the basis of our idea of free will. Free will is not ‘free’ in virtue of exemption from causal links running through all our self-based processes - ones that remain hidden from our awareness, but is free of what is perceived to be ‘reason and rationality’ based on knowledge and the common pool of beliefs and principles associated with a shared world-view. When we speak of the choice involved in an act of exercise of free will what we actually refer to is the commonly observed fact that various different individuals of a similar disposition respond differently when placed under similar circumstances. In other words, free will is ‘free’ precisely because it is not subject to constraints of a commonly accepted and shared set of principles, beliefs, and values. While it is possible that, in an exercise of free will, the self-linked psychological resources are brought into action when a number of alternatives are presented to the self by the operation of the ingredients of a commonly shared world-view, it seems likely that, that set of alternatives is not of primary relevance in the final response that the mind produces, since the latter is primarily a product of the operation of the self-based psychological resources. What is of greater relevance here is the operation of emotion-driven processes, guided by the psychological value-system based on the activity of the so-called reward-punishment network in the brain. These processes lead the individual to a response that appears to be free from the shackles of determinism precisely because their mechanisms, which are hidden from us, do not conform to commonly accepted and shared rules and principles. In contrast, inductive inference is a process that is based on the ‘cognitive face’ of self, where the self-based psychological resources play a supportive role to the commonly shared world-view of an individual. There is never any freedom from the all-pervading causal links representing correlations among all objects, entities, and events in nature. In the midst of all this, the closest thing to freedom that we can have in our life comes with self-examination and self-improvement. The possibility of self-examination appears in the form of specific conjunctions between our complex self-processes and the ceaseless changes of scenario in our external world. This actually makes the emergent phenomenon of self-examination a matter of chance, but one that keeps on appearing again and again in our life. Once realized, self examination creates possibilities that would not be there in the absence of it, and these possibilities include the enhancement of further self-enrichment and further diversity in the exercise of our free will. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:preface This issue of Feminist Studies includes a cluster of essays that demonstrates new approaches to life writing, with special attention to unconventional women’s autobiographies. Lara Vapnek describes the historical inhibitions that shaped the self-presentation of pioneering American labor activist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn in the early twentieth century such that she omitted her sexual relationships with both women and men from her autobiographical writings. Overlapping with Vapnek’s historical focus, (...) Nora Doyle’s essay takes a new look at Gertrude Stein’s bestknown and most accessible work, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, seeing it as Stein’s clever reworking of the women’s genre of domestic fiction in its pairing of a domesticated wife with a “genius” husband. In her examination of Kamala Das’s Balyakala Smaranakal (Memories of childhood), Sharmila Sreekumar discusses how the memoir’s depiction of self-deferral rather than self-realization unsettles autobiographical conventions through its troubling of the relationship between “self,” “life,” and “writing” that is constitutive of the genre. In Olga Zilberbourg’s short story, two women are baffled as they contemplate a friend’s suicide: what does it say about their own accomplishments and losses? Attention to the visual aspects of women’s lives and to their embodiment is highlighted in Estelle Carol’s memoir about her time spent as a member of the Graphic Collective of the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union in the 1970s. Corey Hickner-Johnson’s lyrical essay describes the first-person I of the poem as pushing herself to a physical extreme. Her autobiographical crisis-moment, depicted in acutely visceral and visual terms, wills into relief life’s underlying colors against a backdrop of otherwise drab monotony and disappointment. Feminist graphic artwork is discussed in Hillary Chute’s review essay on the newly popular genre of graphic novels by women. Alexandra Ketchum’s “‘The Place We’ve Always Wanted to Go But Never Could Find’: Finding Woman Space in Feminist Restaurants and Cafés in Ontario 1974–1982” and Samantha Pergadia’s “Geologies of 8 Sex and Gender: Excavating the Materialism of Gayle Rubin and Judith Butler” shift our attention away from individual life trajectories to broader sweeps of space and time. Ketchum’s history of feminist restaurants and cafes in Ontario, Canada, in the mid 1970s to early 1980s encourages us to consider the importance of space to the formation of feminist solidarities and political organizing, while Pergadia’s analysis of the geological understandings that undergird the work of both Gayle Rubin and Judith Butler invites us to rethink the temporalities through which gendered and sexed subjects, as well as academic disciplines, are formed. In closing, Ashwini Tambe reflects on the #MeToo movement and how we might fashion a more responsive public reckoning with sexual coercion. The issue leads off with Vapnek’s essay, “The Rebel Girl Revisited: Rereading Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s Life Story.” As Vapnek details, Flynn, an activist in the Industrial Workers of the World, chronicled her life only as far as 1926. Although she envisioned women’s emancipation as an integral component of the socialist revolution, her self-censorship reveals “how communism as well as anticommunism has limited our knowledge of the feminist past.” Flynn remained committed to socialism and women’s rights and continued to agitate for social change, but her efforts to narrate her later life were stymied by internal inhibitions and external forces. For a decade she lived with another woman at a time when leftists were not open about same-sex relationships. Nor did she wish to reveal her sexual relationships with a number of men or the psychological breakdown she suffered in 1926. Joining the US Communist Party in 1936 re-energized her career as a labor organizer and resulted in her being sent to prison from 1955 to 1957 during the period of the Red Scare in the United States. By her middle age, she had experienced not only nonconventional personal relationships but also a dramatic change in her appearance: rather than the slim girl pictured on the cover of songs designed to encourage the labor movement, she was a stout, matronly woman. Inhibited from revising her autobiography to account for her later life... (shrink)

This article explores the changing parameters of sensibility in the context of a postan­thropocentric paradigm in art. In particular, we address the mechanism of the construc­tion of affects building on the idea of their external autonomy in art. The fundamental disconnectedness of the realm of sensuality is described in the context of object ontolo­gies, via the modes of connectedness and conditionality that exist beyond the limits of individual experience. A generalized description of the procedures of the postanthro­pocentric paradigm of (...) distributed aesthetics is provided. The article discusses the shift in the understanding of the function and autonomy of art associated with the emergence of object forms of art. The current situation in object art, in particular in total installa­tions, suggests a different paradigm of aesthetics. The specific workings of such a para­digm are clarified on the basis of the distinction between affect and emotion proposed by Brian Massumi in his conception of the autonomy of affect. The authors conclude that in deanthropologized environments sensuality operates as a chain of distributed af­fects associated with the effects of increasing intensity and inhibition of intensity through forms of appropriation of affect into a chain of successive instances of sensual­ity. The article’s general theoretical task is to describe the operation of affect structures under conditions of object deanthropologization. The applied task of the article is to de­scribe the mechanisms of understanding and perception of object forms of art, in partic­ular such a form as total installation. (shrink)

The processing of time intervals in the sub- to supra-second range by the brain is critical for the interaction of primates with their surroundings in activities, such as foraging and hunting. For an accurate processing of time intervals by the brain, representation of physical time within neuronal circuits is necessary. I propose that time dimension of the physical surrounding is represented in the brain by different types of neuronal oscillators, generating spikes or spike bursts at regular intervals. The proposed oscillators (...) include the pacemaker neurons, tonic inputs, and synchronized excitation and inhibition of inter-connected neurons. Oscillators, which are built inside various circuits of brain, help to form modular clocks, processing time intervals or other temporal characteristics specific to functions of a circuit. Relative or absolute duration is represented within neuronal oscillators by “neural temporal unit,” defined as the interval between regularly occurring spikes or spike bursts. Oscillator output is processed to produce changes in activities of neurons, named frequency modulator neuron, wired within a separate module, represented by the rate of change in frequency, and frequency of activities, proposed to encode time intervals. Inbuilt oscillators are calibrated by (a) feedback processes, (b) input of time intervals resulting from rhythmic external sensory stimulation, and (c) synchronous effects of feedback processes and evoked sensory activity. A single active clock is proposed per circuit, which is calibrated by one or more mechanisms. Multiple calibration mechanisms, inbuilt oscillators, and the presence of modular connections prevent a complete loss of interval timing functions of the brain. (shrink)

If both waking and dreaming consciousness are functional, their de-differentiation would be doubly detrimental. Differentiation between waking and dreaming is achieved through neuromodulation. During dreaming, without external sensory data and with mesolimbic dopaminergic input, hyper-cholinergic input almost totally suppresses the aminergic system. During waking, with sensory gates open, aminergic modulation inhibits cholinergic and mesocortical dopaminergic suppresses mesolimbic. These neuromodulatory systems are reciprocally interactive and self-organizing. As a consequence of neuromodulatory reciprocity, phenomenologically, the self and the world that appear during (...) dreaming differ from those that emerge during waking. As a result of self-organizing, the self and the world in both states are integrated.Some loss of self-organization would precipitate a degree of de-differentiation between waking and dreaming, resulting in a hybrid state which would be expressed heterogeneously, both neurobiologically and phenomenologically. As a consequence of progressive de-differentiation, certain identifiable psychiatric disorders may emerge. Ultimately, schizophrenia, a disorganized-fragmented self, may result. (shrink)

We propose that local corruption distorts the allocation of government-controlled resources and impairs the contract environment, thereby reducing firms’ use or suppliers’ provision of trade credit. We use a sample of Chinese-listed firms from 2007 to 2020 to examine the role of local corruption in firms’ access to trade credit and find that the level of local corruption is negatively related to firms’ trade credit use. This effect is more pronounced in firms with weak (vs. strong) internal governance, slack (tight) (...) external monitoring and high (low) supplier concentration. The results of path analysis show that local corruption extends short-term bank loans as well as government subsidies and impairs firms’ accounting quality, thereby inhibiting firms’ demand for or suppliers’ provision of trade credit. Moreover, the post-2012 anti-corruption campaign in China plays a significant role in correcting the misallocation of trade credit caused by corruption. The results of this study illuminate the negative external effects of local corruption on trade credit. (shrink)

SummaryStarting with an analysis of the respiratory function and of the way it automatically connects the living organism with the physical milieu without any conscious or voluntary effort, Dr De Greeff then asserts that, on the Psychological level, similar basic mechanisms connect the individual with the social environment, and more generally with the Cosmos.Typical disorders of these mechanisms are to be seen in melancholic depressions and in the feelings of strangeness and loneliness they bring about. These mechanisms have à neural (...) basis in the diencephalic region and may be influenced by shock therapies. On the other hand, cerebral surgery shows that the frontal lobe intervenes to adjust these connecting mechanisms to the external world in its concrete structure, present and future.The author then criticizes the freudian conception, as he understands it, and proposes to substitute to the Instinct‐Reality dichotomy the antagonism of two internal attitudes, which are basic, automatic, and nearly organic, in the sense defined above: the sympathy‐attitude, which results in valorisation of and subordination to the object, and the defence‐attitude, which manifests itself in aggression and aims at annihilating the object. These attitudes are complementary and any awakening of one of them supposes the inhibition of the other one. But such an inhibition never reaches the stage of an absolute suppression.So much for the instinctive, unconscious and diencephalic basis of action. What kind of new developments do the cerebral cortex and the higher mental functions bring about? They make the individual aware of his basic attitudes, or, more exactly, of the way the object is affected by them so as to appear pleasant or unpleasant, lovable or threatening. They give him the possibility of accepting or refusing the first movements of instinct, and of stabilizing, delaying or inhibiting the corresponding reactions. They are the basis of temporal dimension and integration, of choice, liberty and morality. (shrink)

Recent research has shown that mind wandering recruits executive resources away from the external task towards inner thoughts. No studies however have determined whether executive functions are drawn away in a unitary manner during mind wandering episodes, or whether there is variation in specific functions impacted. Accordingly, we examined whether mind wandering differentially modulates three core executive functions—response inhibition, updating of working memory, and mental set shifting. In three experiments, participants performed one of these three executive function tasks (...) and reported their attentional state as either on-task or mind wandering at random intervals. We found that mind wandering led to poorer performance in the response inhibition and working memory tasks, but not the set-shifting task. These findings suggest that mind wandering does not recruit executive functions in a monolithic manner. Rather, it appears to selectively engage certain executive functions, which may reflect the adaptive maintenance of ongoing task performance. (shrink)

In turning to the language of freedom, I am not automatically freed from the dangers of reduction and self-privileging. "Freedom" as a term is at least as ambiguous as "power" . When I say that for me all questions about the politics of interpretation begin with the question of freedom, I can either be saying a mouthful or saying nothing at all, depending on whether I am willing to complicate my key term, "freedom," by relating it to the language of (...) power. The best way to do that is to get power in from the beginning, by making a distinction taken for granted by many earlier thinkers and too often ignored today: freedom from as contrasted with freedom to; freedom from external restraints and the power of others to inhibit our actions, and freedom to act effectively when restraints disappear.All the freedom from in the world will not free me to make an intellectual discovery or to point a picture unless I have somehow freed myself to perform certain tasks. Such freedoms are gained only by those who surrender to disciplines and codes invented by others, giving up certain freedoms from. Nobody forbids by interpreting the original text of Confucius' Analects or the Principia Mathematica, yet I am not free to do so, lacking the disciplines—having not been disciplined—to do so. The distinction can lead to troublesome complexities, but in its simple form here it cuts through some of the problems that arise in power language.Every critical revolution tends to speak more clearly about what it is against than about what it seeks. The historicists against impressionism, the New Critics against historicism, the new new critics against intentionalism and the authority of canons, the feminists against misogynous art and criticism–clearly one could write a history of modern criticism as a glorious casting off of errors. But it is rightly a commonplace among intellectual historians that all revolutionaries depend on their past far more than they know. Revolutionary critics are enslaved by a nasty law of nature: I can say only what I can say, and that will be largely what I have learned to say from the kings I would depose.Everyone who tries to forge any kind of ideological criticism must struggle with these complexities. Nobody ever knows just what powers have been rejected and what voices heard. But at the moment it seems clear that what follows here, both in its emerging clarities and remaining confusions, results from my somewhat surprised surrender to voices previously alien to me: the "Mikhail Bakhtin" who speaks to me, muffled by my ignorance of Russian, and the feminist criticism" that in its vigor and diversity and challenge to canonic views has—belatedly, belatedly—forced me to begin listening.Wayne C. Booth's most recent work, Critical Understanding: The Powers and Limits of Pluralism, won the Laing Prize in 1982. He is working on a book about ethical and political criticism of narrative. A new edition of The Rhetoric of Fiction will appear in 1983. (shrink)

Current research suggests that there are three major groups of psychiatric conditions: the externalizing disorders (characterized by behavioural problems and lack of inhibition); the internalizing disorders (characterized by depression and anxiety) and the psychotic disorders (characterized by hallucinations and delusions, and typically leading to diagnoses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder). Abnormal conscious experience is evident in the latter two groups and especially the psychoses. Research shows that depression is associated with selective attention to negative information and a tendency (...) to ruminate (brood about negative lief events). Anxiety is associated with vigilance for threatening information and abnormal meta‐cognitive beliefs (beliefs and worries about the content of consciousness). In the case of the psychotic disorders, research suggests that hallucinations are associated with difficulties in source monitoring (discriminating between self‐generated and external stimuli) and trauma‐linked dissociative states. Some delusional beliefs appear to be associated with anomalous experiences and, although a range of cognitive biases are involved, may arise partly as an attempt to make sense of these experiences. (shrink)

This paper argues against the conception of sport as theatre. Theatre and sport share the characteristic that play is set in a conventionally-defined hypothetical reality, but they differ fundamentally in the relative importance of audience and the narrative point of view. Both present potential for participants for development of selfhood through play and its personal possibilities. But sport is not essentially tied to audience as is theatre. Moreover, conceptualising sport as a form of theatre valorises the spectator’s narrative as normative (...) for sport experience over that of the participant athlete or player, eliding player experience. Imposition of external narratives over experience risks fossilising interpretation and inhibits the beneficial effects of play for self-realisation, especially as a form of self-examination and creation through internal self-narrative. (shrink)

Photo ID 279661800 © Sidewaypics|Dreamstime.com ABSTRACT Decolonization is complex, vast, and the subject of an ongoing academic debate. While the many efforts to decolonize or dismantle the vestiges of colonialism that remain are laudable, they can also reinforce what they seek to end. For decolonization to be impactful, it must be done with epistemic and cultural humility, requiring decolonial scholars, project leaders, and well-meaning people to be more sensitive to those impacted by colonization and not regularly included in the discourse. (...) INTRODUCTION Decolonization is complex. To successfully achieve decolonization, projects should incorporate the voices of those subjugated or silenced. Including such voices requires sincerely exploring who has been affected by colonialism or neocolonialism and how, as well as cultural sensitivity. In its basic use, decolonization refers to countries under colonial rule gaining independence or freedom from forms of subjugation. Additionally, scholars use the term to refer to efforts to dismantle neocolonialism and vestiges of colonialism. The process includes de-silencing subjugated voices.[1] I use decolonization in the latter way to refer to countries with technical independence. While arguably colonization ended formally with independence from colonizing powers, neocolonialism is the indirect, informal, and sometimes subtle control of the people, their economy, and political life despite formal independence from colonizing authorities. I conceptualize neocolonialism as a system that involves direct and involuntary control of another’s political, economic, or social life, impacting their worldview and ways of encountering the world. Decolonization may target actions, places, or systems like health care or AI to overcome the ills of colonialism and neocolonialism. It also may target knowledge and require rethinking how people develop their knowledge base. For example, if people grew up seeing an outside colonizer as superior, they would need to change their knowledge of superiority. Decolonization may target power, for example, changing who owns and distributes COVID-19 vaccines and who distributors exclude in the distribution of vaccines. Decolonization could require looking at those disempowered in the distribution process. Additionally, decolonization may target autonomy of persons by freeing people, ensuring human and individual rights, and respecting cultural traditions. Decolonization projects that try to de-silence by including the voices of those affected by colonialism and neocolonialism must examine inclusiveness in the context of the culture of the subrogated individuals. Examples of decolonization projects include making datasets inclusive of diverse peoples and places, returning to traditional food and eating practices, making sure hospitals in developing countries are led by locals and respectful of cultural traditions, returning unethically obtained artefacts or objects. Another project would be laying the groundwork for equality in formerly colonized countries to ensure that business ownership, education, and financial success will flow fairly to those previously victimized by colonization. Summarily, there are many strategies for decolonizing. However, it is worth asking whether the strategies have risks that undermine the goal of decolonization. I. Understanding Decolonization Discourses Many fields, from AI to politics, economics, health care, aviation, and academia, discuss decolonization. The content of the discourse on decolonization depends on the region and field discussing it. Rather than just reporting on decolonization, the discussions may be calls to action. For example, decolonization discourses reflect activism for cognitive justice, such as equal consideration of Indian or African knowledge systems in global health discourses.[2] In politics and political science, some scholars frame decolonization as an anti-western, anti-colonial movement by Africans to emancipate Africa/ns from subjugation or shift the continent to postcolonialism and post-neo-colonialism. This framing walls off non-African participants and may undermine their capacity to benefit the conversation.[3] There are other political scientists who actively support decolonization and see it as a field of activism in support of anyone and countries where colonization harmed people and development.[4] The point is that two ways of conceptualizing decolonization in politics and political science are discernible. One conceptualization is less inclusive since it alienates scholars and professionals from Western, high-income, or developed countries. The other is more inclusive. In humanitarian studies, including philosophy, some decolonization articles and conversations are efforts to end the destructive force of colonization. They focus on either the form, such as ecocide, genocide, and many others, or the geographic location, such as Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania.[5] Finally, the feelings one brings into this conversation can adversely impact how one engages in them and who they listen to or are willing to hear from. For example, anger, rage, bitterness, and hatred are emotions that are not uncommon in spaces of decolonization conversations. Decolonization conversations that originate from a place of negativity risk deepening the psychological state of victimhood and prevent people from disrupting constructively or critically engaging in the conversation.[6] II. Understanding Decolonization Strategies Decolonization strategies mainly aim to de-silence victims of domination or subjugation. People have proposed many strategies for decolonizing. These strategies may be informed by what the target is for decolonization. Decolonization can target power relations in global health. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, public health organizations noted the power imbalance in vaccine distribution. Decolonization could involve de-silencing those affected by neocolonialism to bring about a more balanced distribution of power and a more fair distribution of the vaccine. By analyzing who was adversely impacted by the distribution and who ought to wield power, those engaged in decolonizing advocated for positive change and equitable power relations. Equally, when being is the target of decolonization, the language of unlearning or relearning and mental decolonization take centre stage in the decolonization discourse. For example, the quest to decolonize colonized minds aims to demythologize African inferiority and Western superiority. Demythologizing African inferiority enables those engaged in the decolonization discourse to cultivate and foster African agency.[7] Finally, when knowledge production is the target of decolonization, scholars use inclusion and cognitive justice. For example, they try to alter the knowledge that underlies global health ethics.[8] “[D]decolonizing researchers aim to respectfully understand and integrate theory from Other(ed) perspectives, while also critically examining the underlying assumptions that inform their Western research framework.”[9] One common strategy that scholars use in decolonization is inclusion. It is worth asking, does including people who have been subrogated foster decolonization? Whether that is effective depends on whether included people are more heard or whether the strategies to include them create new forms of silencing. III. Inclusion and the Quest to Decolonize Evaluating how effective inclusion is in the quest to de-silence subjugated voices is important. First, inclusive strategies are not neutral. They are epistemically situated. This situatedness constrains meaning-making in different ways: how and what questions are asked, how social roles are constructed, organized or assigned, and who is admitted to the room where these conversations occur.[10] Inclusion strategies may reinforce (unchallenged) assumptions. For example, to address prejudices and stereotypes in global health images, Arsenii Alenichev and his colleagues[11] successfully inverted “one stereotypical global health image” by prompting a generative AI to produce “an image of a traditional Indian or African healer healing a White Child.” Although there were some problems with the image of the White child, this innovation is a significant, useful effort to de-embed or strip global health images of problematic pictures that mythologize White superiority and Black inferiority. Yet it is possible that using categories like traditional Indian or African reinforces unchallenged assumptions, raising key questions regarding how language and words create new stereotypes. It is common to define traditional as non-conventional, unorthodox, and informal. Yet studies continue to reveal that non-scientifically appraised healing approaches in India or Africa are not only effective but also real, meaningful, fundamental, and primary care-seeking behaviours in many communities in these regions.[12] Suppose inclusive strategies are not un-situated. These conversations may be had within the structures, language, and spaces built by or connected to colonialism. The spaces, language, places, and structures in which these conversations occur can limit who can participate and how they participate. Importantly, some conditions are not conducive to participation as equals. The allocated time for the discussion could also constrain how individuals express themselves. It is unclear who is ultimately heard. Furthermore, epistemic situatedness of inclusion can impact decolonization conversations when participants are beneficiaries of, products of, and trained by structures and systems they seek to dismantle. To enhance the decolonization project and its goals, a pressing task is to unveil and question how the circumstances may inhibit activism. If the vestiges of colonialism continue to structure the decolonization discourse invisibly, the vestiges may undermine decolonization. For example, a public health discussion that includes white Western doctors and Western pharmaceutical executives in Africa may have many local Africans at the table but could still effectively devalue their input based on built-in assumptions and biases that are vestiges of colonialism. Second, exclusion and inclusion are also not binary. Individuals may experience exclusion, even while included (the phenomenon called internal exclusion). In other words, inclusion can fail to be substantial or become a means of enhancing optics, “a way of (un)consciously weakening the radical claims being pursued.”[13] For example, in South Africa, many institutions have made significant efforts to diversify their faculties due to the promulgation of the Employment Equity Act 55.[14] The act requires South African institutions to implement employment equity that redresses the history of harmful discrimination in the country. The act further requires transforming departments and institutional administrations. Although many recognize and support the need to transform departments in South Africa, the rhetoric of transformation departs sharply from the lived experiences.[15] This misalignment between the plan and practice is evident in the underrepresentation of black people and females in senior management teams, professorships in many universities and health departments, and positions of power in some South African institutions. Those selected in the transformation of the departments have also complained of being overworked. The burden of extra work undermines their ability to develop agency and voice in the space they now occupy or fulfil key requirements that have implications for their career trajectory.[16] This is called the minority tax. Notably, "the minority tax… is the burden of extra responsibilities [placed] on faculty of colour to achieve diversity and inclusion and contributes to attrition and impedes academic promotion."[17] One challenge for decolonializing projects will be for decolonial scholars and those selected for decolonization objectives to have the humility to decline invitations, requests, roles, and platforms for which they are either unqualified or lack the capacity to fulfil. At its heart, decolonization strategies must empower those included rather than weaken them. Finally, inclusion can lead to a phenomenon known as elite capture.[18] Elite capture occurs when socially advantaged individuals in a group monopolize or exploit activism to their own benefit at the expense of the larger, struggling group. Elite capture weakens decolonization efforts from within, revealing that those likely to benefit from global inclusive efforts are those who fulfil globally constructed standards, those “already present in the room.” There is no better strategy to weaken decolonial movements than weakening the project from within by strategically positioning individuals who share physical properties with the victims of exclusion and silencing but intellectually, behaviourally, psychologically, and emotionally share more common ground with the colonizer. Such insiders may be unaware they are furthering neocolonial conditions rather than decolonizing. In relation to decolonization, particularly in global health, elite capture reveals that those whose voices are loudest in the room are not necessarily those more impacted by colonialism. They may benefit more from reinforcing colonialism. Opportunism weakens meaningful activism from within, preventing good initiatives and strategies from having their intended impact or taking substantive root.[19] This paper cannot do justice to elite capture, but it is worth noting its negative impacts. IV. Improving the Impact of Decolonization To end neo-colonialism, it is important to understand how it manifests and what to do at each level. Beyond the academic discourse, many tangible efforts exist to decolonize through de-silencing. Examples of these efforts include the ME2 movement that seeks to centre the concerns and experiences of sexually abused or harassed victims in the public discourse. At the funding level, many grant-awarding agencies like Wellcome Trust have dedicated huge budgets to studies that help them understand how they may have perpetrated colonialism or neocolonialism and what they can do differently going forward.[20] In South Africa, promulgating the Employment Equity Act 55 was a tangible attempt to entrench decolonization concerns in a country's regulatory framework. Yet, these decolonization efforts could fail to be substantive if they do not reflect cultural sensitivity. Two key components of cultural sensitivity are worth highlighting here: epistemic and cultural humility. Epistemic humility is an intellectual virtue described as knowing one’s limitations and the limitations of the learning methods employed. At its simplest, it is the ability to admit when one is wrong. Cultural humility includes genuine attempts to learn about and embrace other cultures. Epistemic and cultural humility are signs of academic excellence and strength. Epistemic and cultural humility seriously acknowledge how the state of our knowledge, cognitive limitations, experiences, and backgrounds, while constraining us, also invite us to listen, learn, grow, and change. The limitations-owing account of epistemic and cultural humility suggests that “a person who is aware of her cognitive limitations and owns them is much better positioned to achieve such epistemic goods as true beliefs and understanding than someone who… simply has insight into the epistemic status of her beliefs.”[21] Epistemic and cultural humility may help prevent decolonization projects that unintentionally reinforce what they seek to dismantle. Epistemic humility calls on decolonizers to defer tasks for which they are not qualified to suitably qualified persons. Beyond this, humility supports brave scholarship that imagines and reimagines how featuring the same voices, faces, and perspectives possibly introduces new forms of domination or silencing. Cultural knowledge can lead to a more intentional way of seeking out the right people or a more diverse group than those frequently featured in decolonization conversations. This would give others more opportunities to navigate these spaces and should do so in ways that are familiar to them. One ought to be more sensitive to those who would ordinarily not be included in these conversations. Unless we radically and boldly reimagine these discussions, we risk alienating those most negatively impacted by neocolonialism. CONCLUSION Decolonization conversations are complex and the subject of academic debate. The strategies employed to decolonize can harm or help the victims of neo-colonialism. Inclusion of previously silenced individuals may not be enough to overcome the vestiges of colonialism, leading to a false inclusion, where those included feel excluded or contribute in ways reflecting their own biases and circumstances. Inclusion of an elite or people who do not truly represent the subjugated can lead to elite capture. For decolonization strategies to be impactful, for example, in the context of global health, project leaders and participants must engage in conversations employing epistemic and cultural humility. In many ways, epistemic and cultural humility can help us demythologize our assumptions of any cultural superiority or cognitive authority, allowing for diverse voices, cultures, and perspectives to emerge without domination. - [1] Caesar Atuire & Olivia Rutazibwa. 2021. An African Reading of the Covid-19 Pandemic and the Stakes of Decolonization. An African Reading of the Covid-19 Pandemic and the Stakes of Decolonization [Online]. Available from: https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/news/african-reading-covid-19-pandemic-and-stakes-decolonization [Accessed July 29, 2021 2021]. [2] Bridget Pratt & Jantina De Vries 2023. Where is knowledge from the Global South? An account of epistemic justice for a global bioethics. Journal of Medical Ethics, medethics-2022-108291. [3] Anye-Nkwenti Nyamnjoh 2023. Is decolonisation Africanisation? The politics of belonging in the truly African university. Social Dynamics, 1-20. [4] Rianna Oelofsen 2015. Decolonisation of the African mind and intellectual landscape. Phronimon, 16, 130-146. [5] Caesar Atuire & Olivia Rutazibwa. 2021. An African Reading of the Covid-19 Pandemic and the Stakes of Decolonization. An African Reading of the Covid-19 Pandemic and the Stakes of Decolonization [Online]. Available from: https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/news/african-reading-covid-19-pandemic-and-stakes-decolonization [Accessed July 29, 2021 2021]. [6] Pedro Alexis Tabensky 2008. The Postcolonial Heart of African Philosophy. South African Journal of Philosophy, 27, 285-295. [7] Nicholas M. Creary 2012. African Intellectuals and Decolonization, Ohio, Ohio University Press. [8] Bridget Pratt & Jantina De Vries 2023. Where is knowledge from the Global South? An account of epistemic justice for a global bioethics. Journal of Medical Ethics, medethics-2022-108291. [9] Vivetha Thambinathan & Elizabeth Anne Kinsella 2021. Decolonizing Methodologies in Qualitative Research: Creating Spaces for Transformative Praxis. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 20, 16094069211014766. [10] Abimbola Seye 2023. Knowledge from the global South is in the global South. Journal of Medical Ethics, 49, 337. [11] A. Alenichev, P. Kingori & K. P. Grietens 2023. Reflections before the storm: the AI reproduction of biased imagery in global health visuals. Lancet Glob Health. [12] Jonathan K. Burns & Andrew Tomita 2015. Traditional and religious healers in the pathway to care for people with mental disorders in Africa: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 50, 867-877. [13] Anye-Nkwenti Nyamnjoh & Cornelius Ewuoso 2023. What type of inclusion does epistemic injustice require? Journal of Medical Ethics, jme-2023-109091. [14] 1998. Employment Equity Act. In: GOVERNMENT, S. A. (ed.) 19370. [15] Dina Zoe Belluigi & Gladman Thondhlana 2019. ‘Why mouth all the pieties?’ Black and women academics’ revelations about discourses of ‘transformation’ at an historically white South African university. Higher Education, 78, 947-963. [16] Juliet Ramohai & Khomotso Marumo 2016. Women in Senior Positions in South African Higher Education: A Reflection on Voice and Agency. 231, 135-157. [17] J. Trejo 2020. The burden of service for faculty of color to achieve diversity and inclusion: the minority tax. Mol Biol Cell, 31, 2752-2754. [18] Olufemi Taiwo 2020. Being-in-the-Room Privilege: Elite Capture and Epistemic Deference. The Philosopher, 108, 7. [19] Margarita Kurbatova & Elena Kagan 2016. Opportunism of University Lecturers As a Way to Adaptate the External Control Activities Strengthening. Journal of Institutional Studies, 8, 116-136. [20] Jeremy Farrar. 2022. An update on Wellcome's anti-racist programme. An update on Wellcome's anti-racist programme [Online]. Available from: https://wellcome.org/news/update-wellcomes-anti-racism-programme [Accessed August 10, 2022 2022]. [21] Katherine Dormandy 2018. Does Epistemic Humility Threaten Religious Beliefs? Journal of Psychology and Theology, 46, 292-304. (shrink)

The Code of Best Practice produced by the Cadbury Committee on the Financial Aspects of Corporate Governance may be viewed as an ethical code in that it prescribes standards of board behaviour. The Code’s specific recommendations with regard to audit committees appear to offer a practical mechanism for the promotion of ethical behaviour through the inhibition of potentially unethical influences exerted by executive directors over external auditors. The rationale for these recommendations centres on the independence of audit committee (...) members, implying that independence is a prerequisite for ethical behaviour. This paper questions the assumptions regarding the role of independence through an exploration of conceptions of independence held by individuals involved in the activities of audit committees in major UK public limited companies. It suggests that audit committees may have an unarticulated role in providing an arena for the display of independence by the participants. This display forms a part of the ceremonial performance which builds confidence in corporate governance mechanisms. (shrink)

This study investigates the role of sensory processing sensitivity as a predictor of employees’ proactive work behavior. SPS is a multidimensional concept that depicts differences in people’s sensory awareness, processing, and reactivity to internal and external influences. Based on research on SPS as grounded in a heightened sensitivity of the behavioral inhibition and activation systems, it was argued that the relationships with task proactivity and personal initiative as indicators of proactive work behavior differ for the three SPS dimensions. (...) Furthermore, based on the person–environment fit perspective, SPS was assumed to moderate the relationship between employees’ job complexity and proactivity. The hypotheses were tested in two two-wave studies. Across both studies, ease of excitation was unrelated to proactivity. Low sensory threshold was negatively related to personal initiative, only in Study 2, but it did not predict task proactivity. Meanwhile, aesthetic sensitivity was positively related to proactivity, but in Study 2, this relationship could only be established for personal initiative. Moreover, job complexity was positively related to proactivity for those employees high but not for those low in AES. EOE and LST did not act as moderators. This study offers evidence of positive behavioral implications among highly sensitive persons when dealing with job complexity. Overall, the study presents an interesting point of departure for the role of SPS in employee proactivity that calls for more research. (shrink)

Schistosomes are intravascular parasitic helminths (blood flukes) that infect more than 200 million people globally. Proteomic analysis of the tegument (skin) of these worms has revealed the surprising presence of glycolytic enzymes on the parasite's external surface. Immunolocalization data as well as enzyme activity displayed by live worms confirm that functional glycolytic enzymes are indeed expressed at the host–parasite interface. Since these enzymes are traditionally considered to function intracellularly to drive glycolysis, in an extracellular location they are hypothesized to (...) engage in novel “moonlighting” functions such as immune modulation and blood clot dissolution that promote parasite survival. For instance, several glycolytic enzymes can interact with plasminogen and promote its activation to the thrombolytic plasmin; some can inhibit complement function; some induce B cell proliferation or macrophage apoptosis. Several pathogenic bacteria and protists also express glycolytic enzymes externally, suggesting that moonlighting functions of extracellular glycolytic enzymes can contribute broadly to pathogen virulence. Also see the video abstract here https://youtu.be/njtWZ2y3k_I. (shrink)

Three approaches have been used to investigate the inhibitory role of the cytokinin class of phytohormones in plant senescence: external application of cytokinins, measurement of endogenous cytokinin levels before and during senescence, and manipulation of endogenous cytokinin production in transgenic plants. In transgenic plant studies, endogenous cytokinin levels are manipulated by expression of IPT, a gene encoding isopentenyl transferase. Transgenic plants expressing IPT from a variety of promoters exhibit developmental and morphological alterations and often display retarded leaf senescence. A (...) recently developed autoregulatory senescence‐inhibition system targets cytokinin production quantitatively, spatially and temporally, and results in transgenic plants that exhibit significantly delayed senescence without abnormalities. These transgenic studies not only confirm the regulatory role of cytokinins in plant senescence, but also provide a way to manipulate senescence for potential agricultural applications. (shrink)

This article addresses the physical chemical processes underlying biological self-organisation by which a homogenous solution of reacting chemicals spontaneously self-organises. Theoreticians have predicted that self-organisation can arise from a coupling of reactive processes with molecular diffusion. In addition, the presence of an external field, such as gravity, at a critical moment early in the process may determine the morphology that subsequently develops. The formation, in-vitro, of microtubules, a constituent of the cellular skeleton, shows this type of behaviour. The preparations (...) spontaneously self-organise by reaction-diffusion and the morphology that develops depends upon the presence of gravity at a critical bifurcation time early in the process. Here, we present numerical simulations of a population of microtubules that reproduce this behaviour. Microtubules can grow from one end whilst shrinking from the other. The shrinking end leaves behind a chemical trail of high tubulin concentration. Neighbouring microtubules preferentially grow into these regions, whilst avoiding regions of low tubulin concentration. The chemical trails produced by individual microtubules thus activate and inhibit the formation of neighbouring microtubules and this progressively leads to self-organisation. Gravity acts by way of its directional interaction with the macroscopic density fluctuations present in the solution arising from microtubule disassembly. (shrink)

“Responses: A Summing Up” replies to the wide‐ranging contributions to the book. It argues for the complete exclusion of torture from public policy, and defends a broadly consequentialist ethical view of war. It discusses the mutual interplay between society and systems of belief, and urges the relevance of epistemology to dialogue between conflicting ideologies. In discussing an “external moral law,” it expresses doubts about “external reasons.” It discusses the obligation to alleviate poverty, recognizing how hard we find this, (...) and looks for ways of doing better by working with the grain of our psychology. It considers how fantasies about being hard and tough erode the compassion that inhibits atrocities. “Responses: A Summing Up” hopes to express some coherence of outlook toward these very diverse questions. (shrink)

In “History of Sexuality” Foucault argued that repression is the wrong model of power, understanding it in exclusively negative terms, as external to the body it constrains and inhibits. Power may also be positive, productive, and constitutive of the body and its possibilities. Thus, an adequate account of the relation between cultural forces and the body, Foucault argues, must challenge the “repressive hypothesis”. Contemporary feminist accounts of the body are structured by this same oppositional view of power Foucault assumed: (...) to call on Rosi Braidotti’s distinction, discursive forces are either negative or repressive or positive and empowering. In this paper I argue that this opposition forecloses several possibilities for thinking the morphogenetic role of culture. In particular, it assumes wrongly that repressive relations cannot be productive. (shrink)

The classical "western" model of modernization assumes that economie development in the end will lead to a more uniform world of political democracies in free market economies. However, this western model turns out to be too deterministic for non-western countries.A selective review of the theoretical and empirical literature on the question learns that the western model runs into problems because it does not make a clear distinction between preconditions for political democratization and demands posed by modernization. Empirical studies show, contrary (...) to the western model logic, that there is no direct positive relationship between economie growth and political democratization. Cultural and structural thresholds may inhibit democratization : an intolerant culture, absence of a free market economy, external influences, a history of constantly wavering political regimes. As concerns the demands posed by modernization, modern political regimes tend to develop common characteristics, one of them being the design ofmore participatory structures and procedures. But there is no theoretical evidence whatsoever of the western model being the final destination for all modernizing societies. (shrink)

Pain is modulated by cognitive factors, including attention and emotions. In this study we evaluated the distractive effect of aesthetic appreciation on subjectively rated pain and multi-channel evoked potentials induced by CO2 laser stimulation of the left hand in twelve healthy volunteers. Subjects were stimulated by laser in the absence of other external stimulation and while looking at different paintings they had previously rated as beautiful, neutral or ugly. The view of paintings previously appreciated as beautiful produced lower pain (...) scores and a clear inhibition of the P2 wave amplitude, localized in the anterior cingulate cortex; the inhibition of P2 wave amplitude was lesser or not significant during the presentation of the ugly or neutral paintings, respectively. Dipole source localization analysis of the LEP peaks showed significant changes during different conditions, with a shift from the posterior to the anterior right cingulated cortex while looking at paintings previously rated as beautiful. (shrink)

Dreaming: a process of self-organizationKahn and Hobson (1993) proposed that dreams are a product of self-organization of brain during sleep. As a complex system far from equilibrium state, the dreaming brain may form a new pattern by the interaction between components within this system. At REM sleep stage, signals from neuronal clusters self-organize and form image fragments, then the image fragments interact and produce images, and finally these materials are associated into a relatively continuous narrative (i.e., dreams). This process above (...) happens under a weak control of brain, and the conditions of this state mainly include: (a) the inhibition of external stimuli or feedback; (b) the changes of neuromodulatory systems (e.g., the governance of aminergic neurochemicals and the weakness of cholinergic neurochemicals); (c) the bombardment of PGO wave to the visual cortex; and (d) the changes of neural activity in brain (e.g., the activation of limbic system and the reduction of prefrontal regions). In this situation, the brain could focus on the internal world and integrate various psychological and physiological changes into dream content (Kahn et al., 2002, 2000). However, self-organization mechanism could not determine which memories will be activated and incorporated into dream content (Kahn, 2013), although it provides an approach how an ordered structure, behavior or pattern spontaneously emerges from the interaction between components or subsystems without an e... (shrink)

The Krüppel‐like factors (KLFs) comprise a family of evolutionarily conserved zinc finger transcription factors that regulate numerous biological processes including proliferation, differentiation, development and apoptosis. KLF4 and KLF5 are two closely related members of this family and are both highly expressed in epithelial tissues. In the intestinal epithelium, KLF4 is expressed in terminally differentiated epithelial cells at the villus borders of the mucosa and inhibits cell growth, while KLF5 is expressed in proliferating epithelial cells at the base of the intestinal (...) crypts and promotes cell growth. KLF4 and KLF5 respond to a myriad of external stress stimuli and are likely involved in restoring cellular homeostasis following exposure to stressors. Confirming their importance in maintaining tissue integrity, KLF4 and KLF5 are both dysregulated in various types of cancer. Here we review the recent advances in defining the physiological and pathobiological roles of KLF4 and KLF5, focusing on their functions in the intestinal epithelium. BioEssays 29:549–557, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.2 (2002) 462-464 [Access article in PDF] The Phantom Table: Woolf, Fry, Russell and the Epistemology of Modernism,by Ann Banfield; 452 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, $55.00. We have grown accustomed to reading Woolf philosophically. Lucio Ruotolo, Mark Hussey, Gillian Beer, and Pamela Caughie are just a few notable scholars who have used philosophical texts and themes to shed light on Woolf's novels and life, (...) but Ann Banfield's The Phantom Table marks the beginning of a new approach. Contrary to the poststructuralist readings of the last two decades, Banfield treats Woolf as a "philosophical realist" (p. 294), an interpretation that presupposes that "Truth, although logically constructed, remains nonetheless objective, a discovery, as opposed to a creation, of the mind" (p. 94). To justify this approach, Banfield makes a case for privileging Bertrand Russell's "symbolic logic" (p. 42) as "a key if limited influence on Woolf's thinking about language" (pp. 42-43). Simply appropriating elements of Russell's rigorous epistemology, however, is not enough to determine Woolf's thinking, for as Banfield claims: "Woolf's philosophically inflected aesthetic is not one Russell would have foreseen" (p. 54). Roger Fry's astute reflections on Post-Impressionism aesthetics complement Russell's philosophical approach and thereby provide Woolf with a framework for the "novel's realism [which] must relate two competing realities, the private world and the public persona" (p. 324). Through an extraordinarily insightful analysis of the work of Russell and Fry, Banfield offers an intelligent interdisciplinary interpretation of the rigorous epistemological presuppositions at the base of Woolf's aesthetic.Central to Banfield's project is the conviction that reality is mind-independent (p. 101). On this view, "modern fiction ultimately aims to describe a reality beyond privacy" (p. 298), but to understand how we can access that reality we must carefully distinguish sensations, sense-data, and sensibilia. According to Russell, sensations are the private experiences or awareness of a subject, whereas a sense-datum is "that external object of which in sensation the subject is aware" (p. 70). Sensibilia, the lynchpin of Russell's and Banfield's theory, have the same ontological status as sense-data, though they are not necessarily data to a specific mind. Banfield cleverly articulates the ontological priority of sensibilia by reversing Berkeley's famous dictum: "What brings about" sensibilia's "actualization is the perspective's occupation by a subject and the corresponding interception of sensibilia by sense-organs located in time and space" (pp. 74-75). Sensibilia need not be perceived to exist, which places the perceiving subject at the mercy of sensibilia, rather than making sensibilia ontologically dependent upon the perceiving mind.Given the primacy of sensibilia, the epistemological "goal is now to leave one's perspective and imaginatively project oneself into other perspectives, even the possible ones inhumanly occupied, to experience the world as it would be without the thinker" (p. 213). According to this system, the perceiving [End Page 462] subject and the modernist artist become irrelevant because they can inhibit our experience and/or understanding of sensibilia. Eliminating the subject and effacing the author, therefore, become necessary so that "artistic creativity" (p. 173) is given free flow, which means that for art to achieve its goal of seeing "the world 'as far as possible as it is in itself, and not merely through the distorting medium of personal desire'" (p. 382), the death of the subject is mandatory—though this death of the subject differs considerably from Roland Barthes's, Michel Foucault's, and Paul de Man's. Once the subject is eliminated, which occurs in Woolf's novels according to Banfield, the novelist will be able to create a "method of multiple perspectives" which functions as a "route to wider knowledge" (p. 312) of sensibilia.In the last part of the book, Banfield examines how "Fry's aesthetic derives from analytic philosophy" (p. 248) and then argues that Woolf incorporates much of this aesthetic into her work. Fry makes a clear distinction between Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. Impressionism represents the "totality... (shrink)

There is agency in all we do: thinking, doing, or making. We invent a tune, play, or use it to celebrate an occasion. Or we make a conceptual leap and ask more abstract questions about the conditions for agency. They include autonomy and self-appraisal, each contested by arguments immersing us in circumstances we don’t control. But can it be true we that have no personal responsibility for all we think and do? Agency: Moral Identity and Free Will proposes that deliberation, (...) choice, and free will emerged within the evolutionary history of animals with a physical advantage: organisms having cell walls or exoskeletons had an internal space within which to protect themselves from external threats or encounters. This defense was both structural and active: such organisms could ignore intrusions or inhibit risky behavior. Their capacities evolved with time: inhibition became the power to deliberate and choose the manner of one’s responses. Hence the ability of humans and some other animals to determine their reactions to problematic situations or to information that alters values and choices. This is free will as a material power, not as the conclusion to a conceptual argument. Having it makes us morally responsible for much we do. It prefigures moral identity. Closely argued but plainly written, Agency: Moral Identity and Free Will speaks for autonomy and responsibility when both are eclipsed by ideas that embed us in history or tradition. Our sense of moral choice and freedom is accurate. We are not altogether the creatures of our circumstances. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.3 (2002) 265-269 [Access article in PDF] The Psychology and Physiology of Depression Walter Glannon Trauma and stressful events can disrupt the physiologic homeostasis of our bodies and brains. The physiologic stress response consists of neural and endocrine mechanisms whose function is to reestablish homeostasis. These mechanisms include the secretion of glucocorticoids (cortisol) and catecholemines (epinephrine and norepinephrine). Once an external event has ceased (...) to be a stressor or threat to a human organism, an integrated system of negative feedback loops inhibits the continued production of these hormones and effectively shuts down the stress response. These mechanisms are adaptive in the sense that they ensure the survival of the organism by reestablishing homeostasis. But prolonged exposure to real or perceived stressors can trigger prolonged secretion of stress hormones, thereby disrupting the feedback systems and causing a cascade of pathogenic events. The stress response is a double-edged sword. An acute stress response can protect an organism from external threats and reestablish homeostasis. But a chronic stress response can cause the body's defenses to become damaging rather than protective and to result in various disorders. Acute stress responses are adaptive. Chronic stress responses are often maladaptive and pathogenic.In "Depression as a Mind-Body Problem," I characterized major clinical depression as a disorder resulting from a maladaptive chronic stress response (Glannon 2003). Specifically, I argued that depression often results when our beliefs and emotions are out of proportion to the true nature of external events. The mind prolongs rather than constrains the physiologic stress response. Depression is not a disorder of the brain alone or the mind alone, however. Endocrine and immune dysfunction can contribute to the dysfunction in the brain and central nervous system that are involved in depression. Moreover, the contents of the mental states that initiate the sequence of events leading to depression are reflections of the person's natural and social environment. Thus, a satisfactory account of depression requires an analysis of the interconnections among the central nervous, endocrine, and immune systems, as well as the mind and the environment. All of these factors support the description of depression as a psychoneuroimmunologic disorder.Mike Martin (Martin 2003) and Thomas Fuchs (Fuchs 2003) discuss important aspects of depression that I did not elaborate in my paper. Martin argues that I fail to distinguish between depression as a mood and depression as a disorder. This is pertinent to the distinction evolutionary psychiatrists draw between moods that are adaptive and moods that are maladaptive. In contrast to my negative characterization of depression, Martin also makes a case for the positive [End Page 265] contributions of depression to meaningful life. Fuchs explores the notion of the brain as an organ of translation enabling patients to have meaningful subjective experience. The emphasis on subjectivity has important implications for potential preventive and therapeutic interventions for depression. For whether a person perceives an external event as a stressor may play a crucial role in the physiologic stress response. I will address the main points of these two authors in turn.Contrary to what Martin claims, I explicitly defined chronic depression as an affective (mood) disorder. My focus was on the clinical definition of major depression as a moderately severe to severe chronic disorder. It consists of affective, cognitive, and even physical dysfunction that interferes with a person's ability to carry out the normal tasks of daily life. This characterization of major chronic depression distinguishes it from milder forms of depression, such as dysthymia. Because these milder forms do not involve the same type or degree of dysfunction as more severe forms, they are not appropriately characterized as pathologies. For this reason, I focused on Nesse's (2000) discussion of depression rather than on his discussion of low mood. In fairness to Nesse and Stevens and Price (2000), not all forms of depression are pathologic according to the evolutionary view they defend. Some passive aspects of mild depression may be useful in alerting us to dangerous or wasteful behavior. It does seem plausible to describe depressed moods as falling along a continuum from those that... (shrink)

We studied the dynamics of large networks of spiking neurons with conductance-based (nonlinear) synapses and compared them to net- works with current-based (linear) synapses. For systems with sparse and inhibition-dominated recurrent connectivity, weak external inputs in- duced asynchronous irregular firing at low rates. Membrane potentials fluctuated a few millivolts below threshold, and membrane conductances were increased by a factor 2 to 5 with respect to the resting state. This combination of parameters characterizes the ongoing spiking activity typ- ically (...) recorded in the cortex in vivo. Many aspects of the asynchronous irregular state in conductance-based networks could be sufficiently well characterized with a simple numerical mean field approach. In particular, it correctly predicted an intriguing property of conductance-based net- works that does not appear to be shared by current-based models: they exhibit states of low-rate asynchronous irregular activity that persist for some period of time even in the absence of external inputs and with- out cortical pacemakers. Simulations of larger networks (up to 350,000 neurons) demonstrated that the survival time of self-sustained activity increases exponentially with network size. (shrink)

With rising consumption and environmental problems, there is an increasing need for green consumption. From a micro perspective, the influence of environmental cognition on consumers’ green consumption behaviors and the related mechanisms are examined through multilayer linear analysis and 2010 China General Social Survey microdata with the theory of planned behavior as the model framework. The study shows that environmental cognition positively influences attitudes toward green consumption, green consumption subjective norms, and green consumption perceived behavioral control, which leads to increased (...) intentions to engage in green consumption and actual green consumption behaviors. Environmental cognition can either promote the intention toward and lead to green consumption behavior or directly promote green consumption behavior. The more developed a region’s economy is, the stronger people’s attitudes toward green consumption will be; additionally, the greater the perceived external pressure to engage in green consumption becomes, the greater the likelihood that people will develop the intention to engage in green consumption behavior. Regional environmental quality inhibits green consumption intention to a certain extent. The influence of environmental cognition on green consumption shows regional heterogeneity. (shrink)

The adaptive BCI known as ‘closed-loop deep brain stimulation’ (clDBS) is a device that stimulates the brain in order to prevent pathological neural activity and automatically adjusts stimulation levels based on computational algorithms that detect or predict those pathological processes. One of the prominent ethical concerns raised by clDBS is that, by inhibiting or modulating the undesirable neural states of a cognitive agent automatically, the device potentially undermines her autonomy. It has been argued that clDBS is not a threat because (...) autonomy is fundamentally relational, i.e., it essentially depends on external (e.g., social or cultural) factors. If the relational approach to autonomy includes human-computer interaction, then the mechanisms of clDBS, even if external to the brain and exerting some degree of control over the individual, may support her autonomy. However, DBS applications are substantially different from one another, each involving a specific neurological or psychiatric condition, neural target, mechanism and symptom(s), and therefore at least some of them may not fit into the relational analysis. I examine different clDBS applications for treatment resistant depression and claim that while internal capsule/ventral striatum (VC/VS) clDBS is a case of relational autonomy, subgenual cingulate gyrus (Cg25) clDBS is not. Autonomy (relational or otherwise) requires some degree of self-regulation of our motivational states, which is supported by VC/VS DBS but is absent in Cg25 DBS. In Cg25 DBS the device itself directly influences motivational states, thus substituting or overriding (instead of supporting) the auto-regulatory cognitive processes required for autonomous action. (shrink)

In numerous peripheral sense organs, external stimuli are detected by primary sensory neurons compartmentalized within specialized structures composed of cuticular or epithelial tissue. Beyond reflecting developmental constraints, such compartmentalization also provides opportunities for grouped neurons to functionally interact. Here, the authors review and illustrate the prevalence of these structural units, describe characteristics of compartmentalized neurons, and consider possible interactions between these cells. This article discusses instances of neuronal crosstalk, examples of which are observed in the vertebrate tastebuds and multiple (...) types of arthropod chemosensory hairs. Particular attention is paid to insect olfaction, which presents especially well‐characterized mechanisms of functional, cross‐neuronal interactions. These examples highlight the potential impact of peripheral processing, which likely contributes more to signal integration than previously considered. In surveying a wide variety of structural units, it is hoped that this article will stimulate future research that determines whether grouped neurons in other sensory systems can also communicate to impact information processing. (shrink)

Active participation closely associates with the sustainable operation of co-creation communities. Different from recent studies on the promotion of sustainable operation by identifying the internal and external motivations of user participation, this paper aims to analyze the mechanism regarding how different motivations affect the decision of user participation from group-level perspective. To better understand the mechanism, internal and external motivations are, respectively, captured by return-cost analysis and user interactive network. Afterwards, a network evolutionary game model was formulated to (...) analyze the dynamic strategy selection of all users. In addition, the stable equilibrium and evolutionary path of strategies are analyzed through computational experiments. Results indicate the following: Rewards have an influence on the promotion of active participation. However, with the continued growth of rewards, this promotion does not make sense sustainably. The promotional effect of information noise on the selection of active participation can be found when passive participation is the dominant strategy. However, the inhibitory effect can be seen in populations that mainly adopt active participation. The scale-free feature of user interactive network inhibits the selection of active participation when active participation is the dominant strategy in populations. Results found here is beneficial for managers to implement the specified policies and thus to achieve the sustainability of co-creation community. (shrink)

The Code of Best Practice produced by the Cadbury Committee on the Financial Aspects of Corporate Governance (Cadbury Committee 1992) may be viewed as an ethical code in that it prescribes standards of board behaviour. The Code’s specific recommendations with regard to audit committees appear to offer a practical mechanism for the promotion of ethical behaviour through the inhibition of potentially unethical influences exerted by executive directors over external auditors. The rationale for these recommendations centres on the independence (...) of audit committee members, implying that independence is a prerequisite for ethical behaviour. This paper questions the assumptions regarding the role of independence through an exploration of conceptions of independence held by individuals involved in the activities of audit committees in major UK public limited companies. It suggests that audit committees may have an unarticulated role in providing an arena for the display of independence by the participants. This display forms a part of the ceremonial performance which builds confidence in corporate governance mechanisms. (shrink)