Throughout the animal kingdom, p53 genes function to restrain mobile elements and recent observations indicate that transposons become derepressed in human cancers. Together, these emerging lines of evidence suggest that cancers driven by p53 mutations could represent “transpospoathies,” i.e. disease states linked to eruptions of mobile elements. The transposopathy hypothesis predicts that p53 acts through conserved mechanisms to contain transposon movement, and in this way, prevents tumor formation. How transposon eruptions provoke neoplasias is not well understood but, from a broader (...) perspective, this hypothesis also provides an attractive framework to explore unrestrained mobile elements as inciters of late‐onset idiopathic disease.Also see the video abstract here. (shrink)

E. E. Constance Jones, a regular contributor to Mind and the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, and the author of several textbooks and a monograph, worked in both philosophical l...

Quarantine and spatial distancing measures associated with COVID-19 resulted in substantial changes to individuals’ everyday lives. Prominent among these lifestyle changes was the way in which people interacted with media—including music listening. In this repeated assessment study, we assessed Australian university students’ media use throughout early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia, and determined whether media use was related to changes in life satisfaction. Participants were asked to complete six online questionnaires, capturing pre- and during-pandemic experiences. The results indicated (...) that media use varied substantially throughout the study period, and at the within-person level, life satisfaction was positively associated with music listening and negatively associated with watching TV/videos/movies. The findings highlight the potential benefits of music listening during COVID-19 and other periods of social isolation. (shrink)

A recent surge of research has begun to examine music participation and well-being; however, a particular challenge with this work concerns theorizing around the associated well-being benefits of musical participation. Thus, the current research used Self-Determination Theory to consider the potential associations between basic psychological needs (competence, relatedness, and autonomy), self-determined autonomous motivation, and the perceived benefits to well-being controlling for demographic variables and the musical activity parameters. A sample of 192 Australian residents (17-85, Mage = 36.95), who were currently (...) participating in a musical activity at the time, completed an online questionnaire. Results indicated that females were more likely to perceive benefits to their well-being; and that how important an individual considers music in their life was positively related to perceived well-being. Importantly, the analyses also revealed that the basic needs of competency and relatedness were related to overall perceived well-being as well as specifically social, cognitive, and esteem dimensions of well-being. Autonomous motivation demonstrated significant associations with both an overall well-being score as well as four of five specific well-being subscales measured. Collectively, the findings indicate that Self-Determination Theory offers a useful theoretical framework to understanding the relationship between musical participation and well-being. Further, the pattern of findings reiterates the positive associations between musical participation and one’s psychosocial well-being, with broad implications for people involved in the facilitation of musical activity. (shrink)

This qualitative study focused on how two women African American teachers understand the purpose of teaching social studies and citizenship. The multiple identities as African American women and teachers along with their knowledge of African American history impacted the way notions of citizenship were understood and taught to students. The teachers drew on tenets of Black Feminist thought to make sense of construct of citizenship. Instead of conveying traditional notions of citizenship that include personal responsibility, patriotism, and membership to the (...) nation state, they rejected these constructs of citizenship and understood their role as social studies teachers to instill notions of community membership and agency as aspects of citizenship. African American teacher's alternative notions of citizenship may provide a framework by which reconceptualized multiple views of American citizenship may be presented. (shrink)

In this article I argue that despite the claims of some, all whites in racialized societies “have race.” But because of the current context of race in our society, I argue that scholars of “whiteness” face several difficult theoretical and methodological challenges. First is the problem of how to avoid essentializing race when talking about whites as a social collective. That is, scholars must contend with the challenge of how to write about what is shared by those racialized as white (...) without implying that their experiences of racialization all will be the same. Second, within the current context of color-blind racial discourse, researchers must confront the reality that some whites claim not to experience their whiteness at all. Third, studies of whiteness must not be conducted in a vacuum: racial discourse or “culture” cannot be separated from material realities. Only by attending to and by recognizing these challenges will empirical research on whiteness be able to push the boundaries of our understandings about the role of whites as racial actors and thereby also contribute to our understanding of how race works more generally. (shrink)

Previous research has indicated older adults value listening to music as a leisure activity. Yet, recent research into listening practices broadly has often focused on younger adults and the use of newer, digital listening technologies. Nonetheless, the radio, which is familiar to older people who grew up with it at the forefront of family life, is important to consider with regard to listening practices and the potential associated well-being benefits. This research investigated older adults’ everyday radio listening practices, in order (...) to begin to understand how the radio fits into their daily lives and how it might influence their sense of well-being. Twenty-five Australian residents participated in semi-structured, one-to-one interviews. The results of a qualitative thematic analysis revealed themes concerning listening preferences, listening routines, access, and motivations/outcomes. While personal preferences were diverse, individuals clearly communicated these as well as their established listening routines and habits. Listener motivations varied: some people focused on the enjoyment that listening to the radio creates while some noted benefits to their well-being, such as relaxation, modifying their mood, and feelings of comfort and community. Radio listening practices can be defined in terms of differing engagement styles, as characterized using continua ranging from passive to active, or focused, listening as well as generalized or specific listening. Based on participants’ experiences, a proposed engagement space model links how people engage with the radio to the possible outcomes mentioned. Importantly, benefits to well-being can result from varied engagement styles. The findings presented provide an in-depth understanding of how the radio fits into older adults’ everyday life, with implications for considering how the radio might be used as a widely accessed, low-cost tool for maintaining and enhancing quality of later life. (shrink)

Strategies to support the psychosocial well-being of older adults living in aged-care are needed; and evidence points toward music listening as an effective, non-pharmacological tool with many benefits to quality of life and well-being. Yet, the everyday listening practices of older adults living in residential aged-care remain under-researched. The current study explored older adults’ experiences of music listening in their daily lives while living in residential aged-care and considered how music listening might support their well-being. Specifically, what might go into (...) autonomous listening activities? 32 Australian residents living in two Australian care facilities participated in semi-structured interviews. The results of a qualitative thematic analysis revealed three themes pertaining to “previous music experiences and interest,” “current music listening,” and “barriers to listening.” While an interest in and access to music did not necessarily result in everyday listening practices, of those participants who did listen to music, perceived benefits included outcomes such as entertainment, enjoyment, relaxation, and mood regulation. Drawing on Ruud’s notion of music as a “cultural immunogen” supporting well-being and Self-Determination Theory, theoretical implications of the findings are addressed, relating to how to create and support music activities in aged-care facilities so that they are engaging, meaningful, and promote emotional regulation, community, and well-being. (shrink)

Following Kenya’s independence in 1963, scientists converged on an ecologically sensitive area in southern Kenya on the northern slope of Mt. Kilimanjaro called Amboseli. This region is the homeland of the Ilkisongo Maasai who grazed this ecosystem along with the wildlife of interest to the scientists. Biologists saw opportunities to study this complex community, an environment rich in biological diversity. The Amboseli landscape proved to be fertile ground for testing new methods and lines of inquiry in the biological sciences that (...) were generalizable and important for shaping natural resource management policies in Kenya. However, the local community was in the midst of its own transformation from a primarily transhumant lifestyle to a largely sedentary one, a complex political situation between local and national authorities, and the introduction of a newly educated generation. This article examines the intersection of African history and field science through the post-colonial Africanization of Kenyan politics, the broadening of scientific practices in Amboseli in previously Western-occupied spaces to include Kenyan participants, and an increasing awareness of the role of local African contexts in the results, methods, and implications of biological research. “Africanization” as an idea in the history of science is multifaceted encompassing not just Africans in the scientific process, but it needs an examination of the larger political and social context on both a local and national level. (shrink)

The ability of patients with decision-making capacity to refuse medically beneficial and even life-saving medical interventions is considered fundamental to upholding the principle of respect for a...

Because higher education brings members of academic communities in direct contact with students, the reflective higher education student is in an excellent position for developing two important intellectual virtues: confidence and humility. However, academic communities differ as to whether their members reach consensus, and their teaching practices reflect this difference. In this essay, Ward Jones argues that both consensus‐reaching and non‐consensus‐reaching communities can encourage the development of intellectual confidence and humility in their students, although each will do so in (...) very different ways. (shrink)

The neologism post-truth is commonly used to characterize a polity in which false and biased beliefs have corrupted public opinion and policymaking. Simplifying and broadening our use of the adjective beyond its current narrow meaning could make post-truth a useful addition to the lexicons of history, politics, and philosophy. Its current use, however, is unhelpful and distracting (at best), and experienced as demeaning and humiliating (at worst). Contemporary polities are better characterized as post-trust. A polity becames post-trust when testimony from (...) either a community of knowledge workers or a social group of complainants—such as women who give testimony of sexual assault—loses influence upon public opinion and policymaking. (shrink)

Introduction: Screen-based and mobile technology has grown at an unprecedented rate. However, little is understood about whether increased screen-use affects executive functioning, the range of mental processes that aid goal attainment and facilitate the selection of appropriate behaviors. To examine this, a systematic review was conducted.Method: This systematic review is reported in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses statement. A comprehensive literature search was conducted using Web of Science, MEDLINE, PsycINFO and Scopus databases to identify (...) articles published between 2007 and March 2020, examining the use of mobile technologies on aspects of EF in healthy adults aged 18–35 years. In total 6079 articles were screened by title, and 39 screened by full text. Eight eligible papers were identified for inclusion. Our methods were pre-registered on the PROSPERO international prospective register of systematic reviews.Results: A total of 438 participants were included across the eight studies. Five of the eight studies examined more than one EF. Five studies measured inhibition, and four studies measured decision-making. Smartphone use was negatively associated with inhibition and decision-making. Working memory performance was found to be improved by increased time engaging in video games and by refraining from smartphone use prior to bedtime. Quality assessments indicated high risk of methodological biases across the studies and a low quality of evidence for determining the relationship between technology use and executive functioning.Conclusions: This review highlights the scarcity of the literature in this area. It presents a call for rigorous and objective research to further our understanding of the impact of mobile technology on different aspects of executive function. (shrink)

Moral education is an important topic—both for moral philosophy and for the philosophy of education. Of the many questions that ought to be asked about moral education, certainly the following would be included in any reasonable list: What constitutes a moral education? How does one properly give someone a moral education? and Why provide persons with moral education? I have little to say about question. My main interest in this paper is in the third question, but I shall approach it (...) by first concentrating on question. What does a person have if he possesses a moral education? What is lacking and what is defective in an individual who does not have one? (shrink)

Glaucon's Challenge at the beginning of Book 2 of Plato's Republic has long prompted interpretive difficulties, due to a misunderstanding of its central aspect. The task of this essay is to correct...

In _Bioethics in Context_, Gary Jones and Joseph DeMarco connect ethical theory, medicine, and the law, guiding readers toward a practical and legally grounded understanding of key issues in health-care ethics. This book is uniquely up-to-date in its discussion of health-care law and unpacks the complex web of American policies, including the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Useful case studies and examples are embedded throughout, and a companion website offers a thorough, curated database of relevant legal precedents as (...) well as additional case studies and other resources. (shrink)

The Southern Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

While the nature-grace debate rages in Thomistic circles, St. Bonaventure's theological anthropology and his theology of grace is paid much less attention, with the exception of his argument that Adam was created apart from gratia gratum faciens, or in modern terms habitual or sanctifying grace.1 For this position he has come under some scrutiny. John Milbank connects Adam's short time without habitual grace to Bonaventure's deficient understanding of illumination as proof of an incipient voluntarism and a suspect pure nature theology.2 (...) Turning Milbank upon his head, Fr. Christopher Cullen, S.J. defends the "suspended middle" in Bonaventure by appealing to Adam's creation without grace; human nature has a... (shrink)

Most explanations of beliefs are epistemically or pragmatically rationalizing. The distinction between these two types involves the explainer's differing expectations of how the believer will behave in the face of counter-evidence. This feature suggests that rationalizing explanations portray beliefs as either a consequence of the believer's following a norm, or part of a sub-intentional goal-oriented system. Which properly characterizes pragmatic believing? If there were pragmatic norms for believing, I argue, they would not be consciously followable. Yet an unallowable norm is (...) not a norm at all, and so I conclude that there are no such norms and that pragmatic believing is a sub-intentional, and not a norm-driven, process. /// La mayoría de las explicaciones de las creencias racionalizan de forma epistémica o pragmática. La distinción entre estas dos involucra las diferentes expectativas del que explica acerca de cómo se comportará el creyente frente a evidencia contraria. Este rasgo sugiere que las explicaciones racionalizadoras toman las creencias o bien como una consecuencia de que el creyente siga una norma, o bien como parte de su sistema subintencional orientado a fines. ¿Cuàl caracteriza de manera apropiada el creer pragmático? Aquí argumento que si hubiera normas pragmáticas para creer, no se podrían seguir conscientemente; sin embargo, una norma no seguible no es una norma en ningún sentido, por lo que concluyo que no existen tales normas y que el creer pragmático es un proceso subintencional y no un proceso guiado por normas. (shrink)

ABSTRACTShelley’s “Letter to Maria Gisborne” is a playful improvisational verse epistle, widely praised for its urbanity and its display of the poet’s invention. The verses turn on a catalogue of the collection of odd scientific and mechanical objects that Shelley found scattered around him in the place he composed the letter, the Livorno workshop of Gisborne’s son, a young engineer who was building a new-model steamboat at the time. In the context of that space, the poem reads as a response (...) to competing notions of invention. For Shelley, the engineer’s workshop is an attractive alternative to the poet’s tower—which was uncomfortably close to a Grub Street garret. Verbal and visual images of poets’ and scientists’ workshops, from Hogarth and Mary Robinson, to Joseph Wright of Derby and Frankenstein, illustrate the tensions embodied in the physical location and poetic performance of Shelley’s celebrated “Letter.”. (shrink)

Dark comedies invite us to laugh at something which is, at least ostensibly, not funny at all. They take an act or event that would, under most descriptions or presentations, invite pity or anger, and give it characteristics that invite amusement. It is essential to the humour of the kidnapping in The King of Comedy that it is a kidnapping. The immorality of this event is crucial to its humour.

The proponents of the ‘vindication’ or ‘pragmatic justification’ of induction have attempted to show that induction will work if any method does. This in turn serves as grounds for their claim that we have everything to gain by using induction and nothing to lose. Hence, they conclude that it is rational to use induction. Their claim that induction will work if any mehtod does is based upon the following argument:If nature is uniform, induction will work. If nature is not uniform (...) and some other method works, the success of that method will then constitute a regularity to which induction can be successfully applied. In that case, induction will sanction the continued use of the successful method and hence will be successful as well. (shrink)

Statistical properties in the visual environment can be used to improve performance on visual working memory tasks. The current study examined the ability to incidentally learn that a change is more likely to occur to a particular feature dimension and use this information to improve change detection performance for that dimension . Participants completed a change detection task in which one change type was more probable than others. Change probability effects were found for color and shape changes, but not location (...) changes, and intentional strategies did not improve the effect. Furthermore, the change probability effect developed and adapted to new probability information quickly. Finally, in some conditions, an improvement in change detection performance for a probable change led to an impairment in change detection for improbable changes. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: What is Sexism? Background: Language, Experience, and Recognition Levels of Sexism Two Feminist Views of Sexism Objections.

Political argument and institutions in the UnitedKingdom have frequently been represented as the products of ablend of nationalistic conservatism, liberal individualism andsocialism, in which consensus has been prized over ideology. This situation changed, as the standard story has it, with therise of Thatcherism in the late 1970s, and again with the arrivalof Tony Blair's ``New Labour'' pragmatism in the late 1990s. Solidarity as an element of political discourse makes itsappearance in the UK late in the day. It has been most (...) stronglylinked to the Third Way debate, as framed most influentially inthe work of Prof. Anthony Giddens.In this paper we review the history and pre-history of the debateon solidarity in the UK, focussing mostly on its implications forwelfare state reform. In particular we discuss the proposals forthe long-term care of the Elderly issued by the Royal Commissionon long-term care in 1999. In this context we critically examinethe idea that solidarity is a new concept in British politicalculture, and that it is a concept which has real political ``bite''in the project of welfare reform. We examine this through aconsideration of Giddens's attempted synthesis of politicalargument and social theory. (shrink)