Protection of study participants is an integral function of the Institutional Review Board. Recently, great efforts were dedicated to enhance investigators’ awareness of ethical principles in conducting human research and to implement reviewing committees’ standards in Jordan to ensure the transparency, versatility, and responsibility in handling human subjects research in the country. The aim of the current study is to evaluate the awareness and attitudes of healthcare investigators in Jordan towards the structure and importance of IRBs. A questionnaire was distributed (...) to 200 investigators and graduate students from the Jordan University of Science and Technology. The majority of the responses indicated positive knowledge towards core ethics guidelines and the importance of IRBs. This includes beneficence, confidentiality, informed consent, and treating participants with respect. In addition, the majority of participants agreed on the importance of the IRB for ensuring the rights, safety, and well-being of the research subjects. Moreover, the majority of participants agreed that the IRB members should be trained on ethics regulations in conducting research and declare any conflict of interest with the investigators. On the other hand, about 30% of participants believed that being reviewed by the IRB would delay research and make it more difficult for the researcher. Jordanian investigators have good awareness of and knowledge about research ethics and the importance of IRBs, though more education is needed. (shrink)

Background Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into healthcare has raised significant ethical concerns. In pharmacy practice, AI offers promising advances but also poses ethical challenges. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted in countries from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region on 501 pharmacy professionals. A 12-item online questionnaire assessed ethical concerns related to the adoption of AI in pharmacy practice. Demographic factors associated with ethical concerns were analyzed via SPSS v.27 software using appropriate statistical tests. Results Participants expressed concerns (...) about patient data privacy (58.9%), cybersecurity threats (58.9%), potential job displacement (62.9%), and lack of legal regulation (67.0%). Tech-savviness and basic AI understanding were correlated with higher concern scores (p < 0.001). Ethical implications include the need for informed consent, beneficence, justice, and transparency in the use of AI. Conclusion The findings emphasize the importance of ethical guidelines, education, and patient autonomy in adopting AI. Collaboration, data privacy, and equitable access are crucial to the responsible use of AI in pharmacy practice. (shrink)

Capacity evaluation has become a widely used assessment device in clinical practice to determine whether patients have the cognitive ability to render their own medical decisions. Such evaluations, which might be better thought of as “capacity challenges,” are generally thought of as benign tools used to facilitate care. This paper proposes that such challenges should be reconceptualized as significant medical interventions with their own set of risks, side effects, and potentially deleterious consequences. As a result, a cost–benefit analysis should be (...) implemented prior to imposing such capacity challenges, and efforts should be made to minimize such challenges in situations where they are unlikely to alter the course of treatment. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Paradoxical Pleasures of Human ImaginationOmar Sultan HaqueHow Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like, by Paul Bloom. W. W. Norton, 2010, 280 pp., $26.95.Have you heard about that chump who dished out $48,875 for John F. Kennedy's dusty old tape measure? The rock star who allegedly snorted his father's ashes with some cocaine? The creepy German guy who put out an advertisement for (...) someone who would let themselves be eaten by him (only to have hundreds volunteer)? The story about the man who was tired with his wife, but powerfully aroused when he was convinced he was with an exact duplicate of her? How can a staunch atheist also believe in the numinous? Why do people buy expensive wines, and bottled water, even though in blind taste tests, they can't distinguish them from the cheap stuff? Why buy pâté when your palate can't distinguish it from dog food? Why do people pay hundreds of dollars to hear the famous violinist Joshua Bell perform, but then cannot even spare a dime when a disguised Bell plays the same music on the subway in regular garb? Why might someone who trains people to prevent falls and injury enjoy watching a comedian fall and hurt himself? Why would someone pay a few hundred thousand dollars for art that consisted of someone else's unmade bed?It may be is easy to feel smug when thinking about this panoply of apparent irrationality in individual decisions and general human propensities. But the things that uniquely delight us may not be as [End Page 182] capricious as they seem. Many of the pleasures (curious or ordinary) that we get from our relationships with food, sex, irreplaceable objects, performances, safety and pain, music, literature and the imagination may have a deeper logic. They may be explicable by a better understanding of how our evolved minds work, and don't work, amidst our historically novel environments. Or so argues Paul Bloom—a cognitive developmental psychologist at Yale University—in How Pleasure Works, a brilliant and articulate synthesis of philosophy, psychology, evolutionary biology and the arts that elucidates the seemingly whimsical and once mysterious sources of our uniquely human hedonic satisfactions.The theory Bloom utilizes to systematize aspects of a number of pleasure phenomena is called psychological essentialism. This is an idea that has been developed in the last two decades by Bloom and the psychologists Douglas Medin, Andrew Ortony, Frank Keil, and Susan Gelman, among others.1 Psychological essentialism claims that, as Bloom puts it, people reliably, at a very young age, cross-culturally and throughout history, think that "things have an underlying reality or true nature that one cannot observe directly and it is this hidden nature that really matters." We assume that objects, artifacts, non-human animals, people and groups have invisible essences and unseen orders that account for their surface properties. In one of Keil's experiments, for instance, children thought that a dog made to look like a toy dog, a porcupine that had a surgery to make it look like a cactus, and a tiger stuffed into a lion suit were still a dog, porcupine and tiger, respectively. However, when each animal had its 'innards' altered, children said the animals changed into different categories, like objects or plants.2 Psychological essentialism for artifacts or tools is somewhat different from that for animate entities; the essence of artifacts is their history and the intentions of their creators.3According to How Pleasure Works, because of psychological essentialism, many human delights seem to arise that cannot be explained by simply appealing either to their low-level sensual qualities or their practical utility. Thus, the theory helps clarify some of pleasure's paradoxes. Like parents who affectionately keep tokens of their children's time as a baby, someone can enjoy owning a tape measure from a famous person because of its history of uses or other associations with important places or people. Snorting dad's ashes (however noxious to the nostrils), or pigging out on someone whom you admire, can be deeply meaningful because it feels as if one is... (shrink)

Introduction -- Stout's proto-new-realism -- Situating G.F. Stout -- Stout's doctrine of primary and secondary qualities -- Stout and the Brentano School -- Representative function of presentations -- Sensible space and real space -- Cook Wilson's geometrical counter-example -- Stout's central question -- Ideal constructions -- Ideal constructions in psychology and epistemology -- British new realism : the language of madness -- Stout's criticisms of Alexander -- Alexander's response -- The nature of sensations, images, and other presentations -- What is (...) the metaphysical problem? -- "How can the interpretation which is supplied by the mind be a constituent of the [physical] object?" -- Some general remarks -- British new realism : the language of common-sense -- T.P. Nunn and the new realism -- Nunn and things -- Nunn's postulate -- Russell and Stout on sensible objects -- Russell, sense-data and sensibilia -- The methods of construction -- Russell's constructions and Nunn's postulate -- Constructions, psychology, and the essence of philosophy -- The methods of logical construction -- A mathematical development -- The principle of abstraction. (shrink)

Bu araştırma, İbn Sînâcı ve İbn Sînâ-sonrası temsilciliğe ve kavramcılığa yönelik Fahreddin er-Râzî’nin tutumunun g mini, onu bu gibi öğretilere karşı giderek daha çok şüpheye düşüren nedenleri irdelemeyi amaçlamaktadır. İbn Sînâ’nın temsilciliğine göre bilgiye, zorunlu olarak, bilgi nesnelerinin mahiyetleriyle özdeş olan zihnî suretler aracılık eder. İbn Sînâ-sonrası bazı düşünürler, zihnî suretleri mahiyetleri açısından nesnelerden farklı olarak, onların yalnızca birer imgeleri olarak dikkate alıp bu açıklamayı yeniden biçimlendirirler. Râzî her iki yaklaşımı da eleştirir. Varlığın eş sesli olmayışına dayanarak İbn Sînâcı temsilciliğin (...) iki kurucu öncülünü (zihnî varlığın ayrılığını ve saf mahiyetin varoluşsal farksızlığını) reddettiği gibi, İbn Sînâ’nın teorisinin sonuçlarından birine (mahiyetlerin zihin-dışı lazımlarını bilmenin imkânsızlığına) dayanarak temsilciliğin kendisini de reddeder. Râzî başlı başına temsilciliğe karşı olarak, temsilciliğin öncüllerinden birinin (bilgi bilende yerleşik olan, izafî-olmayan belirli bir araz gerektirir) yeterince yeterince gerekçelendirilmediğini iddia eder ve ayrıca bilginin tamamen izafet olduğuna ilişkin kendi teorisine dayanarak burhanî açıdan yanlış olduğunu ileri sürer. İbn Sînâ’nın kavramcılığı şeylerin üç sınıfıyla ilgilidir; var olmayan bilgi nesneleri, basit mahiyetlerin tanımsal parçaları ve ikincil akledilirler (mantıksal nitelikler). İbn Sînâ-sonrası kavramcılar Şeyh’i aşarak, üçüncü sınıfı sadece mantıksal nitelikleri değil varlık, birlik, şeylik, kipler ve genel olarak izafetler gibi nitelikleri de içerecek şekilde genişletir. Râzî’nin var olmayan bilgi nesneleri konusunda kavramcılığa yönelik saldırısı, hem varlığın kaplam bakımından sınırsız olduğu şeklindeki genel öncülü hem de hayal nesnelerinin zihin-dışında var olmayan mahiyetlere sahip olduğu şeklindeki özel öncülü eleştirir. Râzî ayrıca (mütekabiliyet argümanı, zihnin ortadan kaldırılması argümanı gibi) genel olarak kavramcılığa karşı olan argümanlar da geliştirir. (shrink)

For this year’s Virtual Issue, our guest editor, Omar W. Nasim, has collected together papers from the Aristotelian Society archives that represent a substantial part of a dispute that contributed to the emergence of analytic philosophy in Britain at the turn of the 20th Century. The dispute was primarily concerned with the problem of the external world – the nature of the sensible objects of perception, and how they relate to physical things and the perceiving subject. The participants in (...) this controversy contested the nature of the appearance-reality distinction, whether it is it is possible for a thing to instantiate contrary sensible qualities at the same place and time, the distinction between presentation and representation, the nature of knowledge by acquaintance, and the nature of sense-data – e.g., whether sense-data are psychical or physical, whether they persist unperceived, and how they give rise to knowledge of the external world. G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell were significant contributors to these debates, but so too were several philosophers whose names are now less well known: G. F. Stout, G. Dawes Hicks, Abraham Wolf, T. Percy Nunn, and S. Alexander. This Virtual Issue collects together, for the first time, the important contributions made to these debates by all of these figures. In doing so it provides a fascinating insight into the ways in which Russell’s earliest attempts to construct the external world from sense-data were influenced by the ideas and arguments of his immediate contemporaries. Omar W. Nasim’s specially commissioned introduction to the Virtual Issue sets out the historical context of these disputes about the external world, and details the prominent role played by the Aristotelian Society in making them possible. (shrink)

Today we are all familiar with the iconic pictures of the nebulae produced by the Hubble Space Telescope’s digital cameras. But there was a time, before the successful application of photography to the heavens, in which scientists had to rely on handmade drawings of these mysterious phenomena. Observing by Hand sheds entirely new light on the ways in which the production and reception of handdrawn images of the nebulae in the nineteenth century contributed to astronomical observation. Omar W. Nasim (...) investigates hundreds of unpublished observing books and paper records from six nineteenth-century observers of the nebulae: Sir John Herschel; William Parsons, the third Earl of Rosse; William Lassell; Ebenezer Porter Mason; Ernst Wilhelm Leberecht Tempel; and George Phillips Bond. Nasim focuses on the ways in which these observers created and employed their drawings in data-driven procedures, from their choices of artistic materials and techniques to their practices and scientific observation. He examines the ways in which the act of drawing complemented the acts of seeing and knowing, as well as the ways that making pictures was connected to the production of scientific knowledge. An impeccably researched, carefully crafted, and beautifully illustrated piece of historical work, Observing by Hand will delight historians of science, art, and the book, as well as astronomers and philosophers. (shrink)

ArgumentKeeping records has always been an essential part of science. Aside from natural history and the laboratory sciences, no other observational science reflects this activity of record-keeping better than astronomy. Central to this activity, historically speaking, are tools so mundane and common that they are easily overlooked; namely, the notebook and the pencil. One obvious function of these tools is clearly a mnemonic one. However, there are other relevant functions of paperwork that often go unnoticed. Among these, I argue, is (...) the strategic use made of different procedures of record keeping to prolong observational time with a target object. Highlighting this function will help us to appreciate the supporting role played by the notebook and the pencil to extend the observational time spent with a target object. With objects as delicate, faint, and mysterious as the nebulae, the procedures used to record their observations helped nineteenth-century observers overcome the temporal handicaps and limitations of large and clumsy telescopes, mounted in the altazimuth manner. To demonstrate the importance of paper and pencil, I will closely examine the observing books, the drawings found therein, and the telescopes of three nineteenth-century observers of the nebulae: Sir John F. W. Herschel, Lord Rosse, and William Lassell. (shrink)

This paper argues for continuity in purpose and specific results between some hand drawn nebulae, especially those ‘descriptive maps’ by John F. W. Herschel and E. P. Mason in the late 1830s, and the first photographs made of the nebulae in the 1880s. Using H. H. Turners’ explication in 1904 of the three great advantages of astrophotography, the paper concludes that to some extent Herschel’s and Mason’s hand-drawings of the nebulae were meant to achieve the same kinds of results. This (...) is surprising not only because such drawings were conceived and achieved over forty-years earlier, but also because the procedures used in the production of these pictorially and metrically rich images were those directly inspired by cartography, geodesy, and land-surveying. Such drawings provided the standard for what was depicted, expected and aimed at by way of successful representations of the nebulae; standards that seemed to have been used to judge the success of nebular photographs. Being conditions of expectation and possibility for later photography, these drawings were themselves made possible by such techniques of representation and measurement as isolines and triangulation, so fundamental to Imperial and ‘Humboltian science.’Keywords: Ebenezer Porter Mason; Cartography; Draughtsmanship; Observation; Scientific Representation; Philosophy of Scientific Practice. (shrink)

This work presents results of improvement in the productivity of Arthrospira platensis in a company dedicated to its production. The six sigma methodology was applied in production processes that require the use of bioreactors. Starting from the analysis of the current state, aspects, physical and chemical variables that directly influence the productivity achieved were identified. Various culture media were tested and subsequently scaled for industrial production. In addition, the incorporation of carbon into the culture medium was controlled, optimizing the range (...) of potential hydrogen pH. The identified parameters were measured and six sigma methodology strategies were assigned. An improvement in productivity corresponding to 66% was verified with the same quality of final product. Keywords: Six sigma, Bioreactors, Productivity, Arthrospira platensis. References [1]E. Ariawan and A. Makalew, “Smart Micro Farm: Sustainable Algae Spirulina Growth Monitoring System” in 10th International Conference on Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, Bali, 2018, pp.1-4. [2]L. Socconini and C. Reato, Lean six sigma: sistema de gestión para liderar empresas. Primera edición. Barcelona: Marge Books, 2019. [3]H. Gutiérrez, Calidad and productividad. Cuarta edición. México D.F.: McGraw-Hill Interamericana, 2014. [4]G. Usharani, P. Saranraj and D. Kanchana, “Spirulina Cultivation: A Review” in International Journal of Pharmaceutical & Biological Archives, vol. 3, no. 6, pp. 1327-1336, December 2012. [5]J. Udin, O. Gani, A. Mahato, I. Sakib and M. Rakiuzzaman, SPIRULINA PRODUCTION IN DIFFERENT PHOTOBIOREACTORS ON ROOFTOP, International Journal of Business, Social and Scientific Research, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 15-19, January 2020. [6]M. Arredondo, Contabilidad y análisis de costos. Primera edición. México D.F.: Grupo Editorial Patria, 2015. [7]J. García, Contabilidad de costos. Cuarta edición. México D.F.: McGraw-Hill Interamericana, 2014. [8]L. Socconini, Certificación Lean Six Sigma Green Belt para la excelencia en los negocios. Primera edición. Barcelona: Marge Books, 2015. [9]A. Vian, Introducción a la Química Industrial. Segunda edición. Buenos Aires: Reverté, 2012. [10]S. Milton, Estadística para Biología y Ciencias de la Salud. Tercera edición. Madrid: McGraw-Hill Interamericana, 2014. (shrink)

BackgroundInstitutional review boards (IRBs) are formally designated to review, approve, and monitor biomedical research. They are responsible for ensuring that researchers comply with the ethical guidelines concerning human research participants. Given that IRBs might face different obstacles that cause delays in their processes or conflicts with investigators, this study aims to report the functions, roles, resources, and review process of IRBs in Saudi Arabia.MethodThis was a cross-sectional self-reported survey conducted from March 2021 to March 2022. The survey was sent to (...) 53 IRB chairpersons and the administration directors (or secretary) across the country through email after receiving verbal consent. The validated survey consisted of eight aspects: (a) organizational aspects, (b) membership and educational training, (c) submission arrangements and materials, (d) minutes, (e) review procedures, (f) communicating a decision, (g) continuing review, and (h) research ethics committee (REC) resources. A total of 200 points indicated optimal IRB functions.ResultsTwenty-six IRBs across Saudi Arabia responded to the survey. Overall, the IRBs in this study scored a total of 150/200 of the points on the self-assessment tool. Relatively newer IRBs (established less than ten years ago) conducted meetings at least once in a month, had annual funding, had more balanced gender representation, tended to score higher than older IRBs. The organizational aspect score was the lowest among all items in the survey (14.3 score difference, p-value < 0.01). The average turnaround time for expedited research from proposal submission to final decision was 7 days, while it was 20.5 days for the full committee review.ConclusionSaudi IRBs performed generally well. However, there is room for focused improvement with respect to extra resources and organizational issues that require closer evaluation and guidance from the regulatory bodies. (shrink)

Indeterminism is opposed to the philosophic theory of determinism, of which Sir Arthur Eddington, in a recent pronouncement on this subject, 1 quotes three definitions. On the ground that it expresses unequivocally what we all feel to be the gist of the theory, he gives preference to the third, from Omar Khayyám:—.

This weighty volume, both literally and figuratively, is an illustrated collection of quatrains in the style and tone of Fitzgerald's Omar. Though Iranian, the author writes a fluent English.--S. M. F.

Bradford F. Hinze şi Irfan A. Omar (eds.), Heirs of Abraham. The Future of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian Relations Maryknoll, New York, 2005.

On one classical conception of God, God has no parts, not even metaphysical parts. God is not composed of form and matter, act and potency, and he is not composed of existence and essence. God is absolutely simple. This is the doctrine of Absolute Divine Simplicity. It is claimed that ADS implies a modal collapse, i.e. that God’s creation is absolutely necessary. I argue that a proper way of understanding the modal collapse argument naturally leads the proponent of ADS to (...) reject a particular premise of the argument: namely, “the same identical cause brings about the same effect.” However, I argue that the rejection of that premise leads to a deeper problem for ADS. It leads to an explanatory gap: how can we explain the relevant type of indeterminism in an absolutely simple God? (shrink)

This paper aims to balance the conceptual reception of Bourdieu's sociology in the United States through a conceptual re-examination of the concept of Habitus. I retrace the intellectual lineage of the Habitus idea, showing it to have roots in Claude Levi-Strauss structural anthropology and in the developmental psychology of Jean Piaget, especially the latter's generalization of the idea of operations from mathematics to the study of practical, bodily-mediated cognition. One important payoff of this exercise is that the common misinterpretation of (...) the Habitus as an objectivist and reductionist element in Bourdieu's thought is dispelled. The Habitus is shown to be instead a useful and flexible way to concep-tualize agency and the ability to transform social structure. Thus ultimately one of Bourdieu's major contributions to social theory consists of his development of a new radical form of cognitive sociology, along with an innovative variety of multilevel sociological explanation in which the interplay of different structural orders is highlighted. In keeping with the usual view, the goal of sociology is to uncover the most deeply buried structures of the different social worlds that make up the social universe, as well as the "mechanisms" that tend to ensure their reproduction or transformation. Merging with psychology, though with a kind of psychology undoubtedly quite different from the most widely accepted image of this science, such an exploration of the cognitive structures that agents bring to bear in their practical knowledge of the social worlds thus structured. Indeed there exists a correspondence between social structures and mental structures, between the objective divisions of the social world . . . and the principles of vision and division that agents apply to them. (shrink)

In this paper, I outline a general framework for cultural analysis consistent with an “analytic” approach to explanation in social science. The proposed approach provides coherent solutions to thorny problems in cultural theory. These include providing a coherent definition of culture (and the “cultural”), specifying the nature of cultural units (both simple and complex), and outlining the processes making possible episodes of cultural genesis, transformation, and reproduction within bounded units characterized as cultural causal systems.

In this paper, we define a revision approach based on a space decomposition using one property of the geographical that we name the containment property. This approach allows us to compute a correct and complete solution, which respects the principle of minimal change.

While previous literature provides evidence of the positive relationship between ethical climate and job satisfaction, the possible mechanisms of this relationship are still underexplored. This study aims to enhance scholars’ and practitioners’ understanding of the ethical climate–job satisfaction relationship by identifying and testing two of the possible mechanisms. More specifically, this study fills an existing research gap by examining social and interpersonal mechanisms, referred to in this study as workplace isolation of colleagues and salesperson’s teamwork, of the ethical climate–job satisfaction (...) relationship. This is vital for the selling profession because job satisfaction is known to drive higher levels of salespeople’s performance. The arguments for such mechanisms are built on the foundations of social/psychological contract theory and ethical climate literature. Empirical testing using a large sample of salespeople shows higher levels of ethical climate to decrease workplace isolation and increase teamwork. Findings support hypothesized model where ethical climate positively relates to job satisfaction as partially mediated by workplace isolation and teamwork. Ethical climate is negatively related to workplace isolation and positively to teamwork. Further, findings indicate negative effect of workplace isolation on teamwork and sales performance. Job satisfaction is found to be key factor in driving performance of salespeople. (shrink)

In this paper, I critically examine Stephen Turner's critique of practice theory in light of recent neurophysiological discoveries regarding the “mirror neuron system” in the pre-frontal mo-tor cortex of humans and other primates. I argue that two of Turner's strongest objections against the sociological version of the practice-theoretical account, the problem of transmission and the problem of sameness, are substantially undermined when examined from the perspective of re-cently systematized accounts of embodied learning and intersubjective action understanding in-spired by these developments. (...) In addition, I show that the practice-theoretical framework out-lined by Pierre Bourdieu in the Logic of Practice and other works is, in contrast to Turner's por-trayal of a confused hodgepodge of logical errors and empirical impossibilities, largely consistent with the latest neurophysiological evidence and as such fundamentally foreshadowed more recent understandings of the neurocognitive foundations of the perception, understanding and structure of the motor schemes productive of action in the world. Also in line with these newer neurosci-entific developments, the practice-theoretical focus on the body as the central matrix generative of tacit understandings and analogical operations responsible for “higher order” systems of classi-fication emerges as the key to solving some of the thorniest problems in the theory of action: eliminating to need to resort to unwarranted “collective object” explanations for the origins of shared presuppositional frameworks. (shrink)

Informed by Gloria Anzaldúa's and José Carlos Mariátegui's work, as well as by Andean cosmology, Omar Rivera turns to Inka stonework and architecture as an example of a "Cosmological Aesthetics." He articulates ways of sensing, feeling and remembering that are attuned to an aesthetic of water, earth and light. On this basis, Rivera brings forth a corporeal orientation that can be inhabited by the oppressed, one that withdraws from predominant modern/Western conceptions of the human. By providing an aesthetic analysis (...) of cosmological sensing, Rivera sets the stage for exploring physical dimensions of anti-colonial resistance, and furthers the Latinx and Latin American tradition of anti-colonial and liberatory philosophy. Seeingaesthetic involvements with the cosmos as a source for embodied modes of resistance, Rivera turns to the work of María Lugones and Enrique Dussel in order to make explicit the aesthetic dimensions of their work. Andean Aesthetics and Anticolonial Resistance creates a new dialogue between art historians, artists, and philosophers working on Latin American thought, phenomenology, and hermeneutics. It weaves together a Latin American philosophy that connects pre-Columbian cosmologies with contemporary thinkers. Rivera's original approach introduces us to the living, evolving and aesthetic alternatives to coloniality of power and of knowledge, overhauling current understandings of decolonial theory and opening the tradition in transformative ways. (shrink)

The authors of the target article articulate the complicated, often conflicting demands of U.S. Food and Drug Administration roles as justification for the FDA’s delay in releasing guidelines...

Chromosomal rearrangements frequently occur at specific places (“hot spots”) in the genome. These recombination hot spots are usually separated by 50–100 kb regions of DNA that are rarely involved in rearrangements. It is quite likely that there is a correlation between the above‐mentioned distances and the average size of DNA loops fixed at the nuclear matrix. Recent studies have demonstrated that DNA loop anchorage regions can be fairly long and can harbor DNA recombination hot spots. We previously proposed that chromosomal (...) DNA loops may constitute the basic units of genome organization in higher eukaryotes. In this review, we consider recombination between DNA loop anchorage regions as a possible source of genome evolution. (shrink)

Antifragility is a property from which systems are able to resist stress and furthermore benefit from it. Even though antifragile dynamics is found in various real-world complex systems where multiple subsystems interact with each other, the attribute has not been quantitatively explored yet in those complex systems which can be regarded as multilayer networks. Here we study how the multilayer structure affects the antifragility of the whole system. By comparing single-layer and multilayer Boolean networks based on our recently proposed antifragility (...) measure, we found that the multilayer structure facilitated the production of antifragile systems. Our measure and findings will be useful for various applications such as exploring properties of biological systems with multilayer structures and creating more antifragile engineered systems. (shrink)

I this paper, I draw on recent research on the radically embodied and perceptual bases of conceptualization in linguistics and cognitive science to develop a new way of reading and evaluating abstract concepts in social theory. I call this approach Sociological Idea Analysis. I argue that, in contrast to the traditional view of abstract concepts, which conceives them as amodal “presuppositions” removed from experience, abstract concepts are irreducibly grounded in experience and partake of non-negotiable perceptual-symbolic features from which a non-propositional (...) “logic” naturally follows. This implies that uncovering the imagistic bases of allegedly abstract notions should be a key part of theoretical evaluation of concepts in social theory. I provide a case study of the general category of “structure” in the social and human sciences to demonstrate the analytic utility of the approach. (shrink)

The purpose of this research is to examine the notion of salesperson moral identity as a prosocial individual trait and its associated effects on customer and coworker relationships. In addition, this study examines the underlying processes in which these effects occur as well as the moderating role of internal competitive climate. Our empirical investigation of business-to-business (B2B) sales professionals reveals that moral identity has both direct and indirect effects on a salesperson’s customer- and team-directed outcomes. Specifically, our results demonstrate that (...) salesperson moral identity positively affects both salesperson-customer identification and organizational identification, which, in turn, impact customer service provision and teamwork. Our findings also indicate that internal competitive climate exacerbates the positive effects of salesperson moral identity on customer service provision and teamwork. (shrink)

Todo autor tiene su favorito entre los libros que ha escrito. El mío es Confesiones de un médico. Así se refiere el médico y filósofo estadounidense Alfred Tauber a esta obra con ya 12 años de recorrido a sus espaldas que acaba de ser traducida al castellano por Antonio Casado. Un texto que da inicio a la andadura de la epistemología moral defendida por su autor y en el que, por lo tanto, se trazan las líneas maestras de esa propuesta (...) que ocupa un lugar esencial en la obra posterior de este referente de las humanidades médicas en Estados Unidos. Confesiones de un médico se constituye, de esta manera, en la obra de presentación de la filosofía rectora de Tauber y actúa al mismo tiempo como el punto de inicio y el eje sobre el que se ha ido expandiendo su visión. (shrink)

One of the criticisms directed at the accounting profession is that auditing and accounting standards are subjective in nature and do not represent the society's widespread interests and values. This paper examines whether a general consensus exists regarding the significance of incorporating society's values into auditing standards. The examination revealed the lack of such general agreement and further indicated that the perceptual differences are subjective in nature and not influenced by the participant's qualifications, income, experience, gender or marital status.

In this book, Omar Farahat presents a new way of understanding the work of classical Islamic theologians and legal theorists who maintained that divine revelation is necessary for the knowledge of the norms and values of human actions. Through a reconstruction of classical Ashʿarī-Muʿtazilī debates on the nature and implications of divine speech, Farahat argues that the Ashʿarī attachment to revelation was not a purely traditionalist position. Rather, it was a rational philosophical commitment emerging from debates in epistemology and (...) theology. He further argues that the particularity of this model makes its distinctive features helpful for contemporary scholars who defend a form of divine command theory. Farahat's volume thus constitutes a new reading of the issue of reason and revelation in Islam and breaks new ground in Islamic theology, law and ethics. (shrink)

Cuba faces a dilemma between continuing its current portfolio of biotechnology drugs and vaccines with lower profitability or renewing its product portfolio with the associated costs and risks.

The Islamic philosophical, mystical, and theological sub-traditions have each made characteristic assumptions about the human person, including an incorporation of substance dualism in distinctive manners. Advances in the brain sciences of the last half century, which include a widespread acceptance of death as the end of essential brain function, require the abandonment of dualistic notions of the human person that assert an immaterial and incorporeal soul separate from a body. In this article, I trace classical Islamic notions of death and (...) the soul, the modern definition of death as "brain death," and some contemporary Islamic responses to this definition. I argue that a completely naturalistic account of human personhood in the Islamic tradition is the best and most viable alternative for the future. This corporeal monistic account of Muslim personhood as embodied consciousness incorporates the insights of pre-modern Muslim thinkers yet rehabilitates their characteristic mistakes and thus has the advantages of neuroscientific validity and modern relevance in trans-cultural ethical discourse; it also helps to alleviate organ shortages in countries with majority Muslim populations, a serious ethical impasse of recent years. (shrink)

La filosofía posee un potencial terapéutico presente desde sus inicios griegos. De entre todas las escuelas helenísticas, podemos afirmar que la que más se preocupó por el malestar humano fue la estoica. El presente artículo analiza la gestión estoica del duelo presente en las Consolaciones de Séneca, exponiendo la operatividad terapéutica de su modelo, en tanto que metodología explicativo-experiencial de fines eudaimónicos o sapienciales.

Muslim physicians and Islamic jurists analyze the moral dimensions of biomedicine using different tools and processes. While the deliberations of these two classes of experts involve judgments about the deliverables of the other's respective fields, Islamic jurists and Muslim physicians rarely engage in discussions about the constructs and epistemic frameworks that motivate their analyses. The lack of dialogue creates gaps in knowledge and leads to imprecise guidance. In order to address these discursive and conceptual gaps we describe the sources of (...) knowledge and reasoning employed by Islamic jurists and clinicians to resolve the question of when a patient must seek healthcare. As we examine both the scriptural evidence and legal reasoning of jurists and the types of medical evidence used by clinicians to address the same question, we draw attention to the epistemic frameworks and constructs at play and identify how constructs from one field may sharpen the deliberative exercises of the other. Hence our work advances discourses at the intersection of Islam and medicine and offers building blocks for a comprehensive Islamic framework that fully integrates the deliverables of medical science within the deliberations of Islamic jurists. (shrink)