Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation and transcutaneous cervical VNS, respectively. In order to advance the field in a systematic manner, studies using these technologies need to adequately report sufficient methodological detail to enable comparison of results between (...) studies, replication of studies, as well as enhancing study participant safety. We systematically reviewed the existing tVNS literature to evaluate current reporting practices. Based on this review, and consensus among participating authors, we propose a set of minimal reporting items to guide future tVNS studies. The suggested items address specific technical aspects of the device and stimulation parameters. We also cover general recommendations including inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants, outcome parameters and the detailed reporting of side effects. Furthermore, we review strategies used to identify the optimal stimulation parameters for a given research setting and summarize ongoing developments in animal research with potential implications for the application of tVNS in humans. Finally, we discuss the potential of tVNS in future research as well as the associated challenges across several disciplines in research and clinical practice. (shrink)

Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation and transcutaneous cervical VNS, respectively. In order to advance the field in a systematic manner, studies using these technologies need to adequately report sufficient methodological detail to enable comparison of results between (...) studies, replication of studies, as well as enhancing study participant safety. We systematically reviewed the existing tVNS literature to evaluate current reporting practices. Based on this review, and consensus among participating authors, we propose a set of minimal reporting items to guide future tVNS studies. The suggested items address specific technical aspects of the device and stimulation parameters. We also cover general recommendations including inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants, outcome parameters and the detailed reporting of side effects. Furthermore, we review strategies used to identify the optimal stimulation parameters for a given research setting and summarize ongoing developments in animal research with potential implications for the application of tVNS in humans. Finally, we discuss the potential of tVNS in future research as well as the associated challenges across several disciplines in research and clinical practice. (shrink)

¿Cómo se forma un sujeto político? En la herencia más antigua de la interrogación filosófica esta pregunta busca recuperar una actitud de asombro suscitada por prácticas diversas de relación consigo y con los otros en las que personas comunes y corrientes ponen en cuestión experiencias sedimentadas sobre el cuerpo y el género, así como fronteras establecidas entre lo natural y lo artificial, lo humano y lo animal, lo común y lo propio. Los artículos aquí reunidos apuntan a mostrar que para (...) pensar estas formas de agencia política es preciso atender a una dimensión amplia de la estética que se refiere al modo en que la materialidad sensorial de la experiencia compartida se ha conformado históricamente y a cómo esta, dada su contingencia, puede reconfigurarse desde ciertas prácticas cotidianas: prácticas de elaboración de sí y de organización colectiva que crean otros escenarios y otras maneras de aparición de los cuerpos, y con esto estrategias de confrontación y antagonismo que atraviesan y afectan lo social. Así, ¿Cómo se forma un sujeto político? es un esfuerzo colectivo de franca resistencia contra la estrechez desde el cual se nos tiende a hacer pensar la política: bien sea desde una política consensual liberal que acaba por neutralizar las diferencias más intratables de nuestra pluralidad, bien sea desde el realismo de una política conflictual y guerrera que funciona desde la polaridad amigo-enemigo. El lector podrá explorar y profundizar, desde otro ángulo, las apuestas epistemológicas, éticas y políticas que resuenan en estas prácticas artísticas y de acción colectiva que nos enseñan hoy, más allá de los paradigmas del "ciudadano" o del "actor racional", cómo se hace un sujeto político. (shrink)

This is an introduction to, and survey of, the constructive approaches to pure mathematics. The authors emphasise the viewpoint of Errett Bishop's school, but intuitionism. Russian constructivism and recursive analysis are also treated, with comparisons between the various approaches included where appropriate. Constructive mathematics is now enjoying a revival, with interest from not only logicans but also category theorists, recursive function theorists and theoretical computer scientists. This account for non-specialists in these and other disciplines.

In this bold, challenging book, D. S. Clarke outlines reasons for accepting panpsychism and defends the doctrine against its critics.

An anthology of readings in panpsychism, spanning two millennia.

Originally published in 1986. Both moral philosophers and philosophical psychologists need to answer the question ‘what is a virtue?’ and the best answer so far give is that of Aristotle. This book is a rigorous exposition of that answer. The elements of Aristotle’s doctrine of virtue are scattered throughout his writings; this book reconstructs his complex and comprehensive doctrine in one place. It also covers Aristotle’s views about choice, character, emotions and the role of pleasure and pain in virtue. The (...) celebrated function is considered carefully as well as the doctrine of virtue being related to Aristotle’s metaphysics and categories. (shrink)

Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PID) is often seen as an improvement upon prenatal testing. I argue that PID may exacerbate the eugenic features of prenatal testing and make possible an expanded form of free-market eugenics. The current practice of prenatal testing is eugenic in that its aim is to reduce the numbers of people with genetic disorders. Due to social pressures and eugenic attitudes held by clinical geneticists in most countries, it results in eugenic outcomes even though no state coercion is (...) involved. I argue that technological advances may soon make PID widely accessible. Because abortion is not involved, and multiple embryos are available, PID is radically more effective as a tool of genetic selection. It will also make possible selection on the basis of non-pathological characteristics, leading, potentially, to a full-blown free-market eugenics. For these reasons, I argue that PID should be strictly regulated. (shrink)

Introduction What is the point of studying Aristotle's theory of moral virtue? In the first place, many interesting questions are raised, in metaphysics, ...

This article asserts that traditionally dominant models of health promotion in the US are fairly characterized by methodological individualism. This schema produces a focus on the individual as the node of intervention. Such emphasis results in a number of scientific and ethical problems. I identify three principal ethical deficiencies: first, the health promotions used are generally ineffective, which violates canons of distributive justice because scarce health resources are expended on interventions that are unlikely to produce health benefits. Second, the health (...) promotions used tend to expand health inequalities between the affluent and the least well-off. Third, the health promotions used are likely to intensify stigma against the least well-off, a deficiency that itself may exacerbate the ‘densely-woven patterns of disadvantage’ that characterize life on the tail of the social gradient. Because Powers and Faden’s health sufficiency model of social justice argues that the amelioration of such clusters of disadvantage should be the primary ethical goal of public health policy, methodologically individualist models of health promotion are ethically deficient and should not stand as primary approaches for health promotion in a just social order. (shrink)

Powers and Faden argue that social justice ‘is concerned with securing and maintaining the social conditions necessary for a sufficient level of well-being in all of its essential dimensions for everyone’ (2006: 50). Moreover, social justice is concerned with the ‘achievement of well-being, not the freedom or capability to achieve well-being’ (p. 40). Although Powers and Faden note that an agent alone cannot achieve well-being without the necessary social conditions of life (e.g. equal civil liberties and basic material resources, such (...) as food and shelter), it seems that achievement requires that an agent actually pursue the six dimensions of well-being. In this article, I question the extent to which an individual has an obligation to achieve well-being, even if he or she would choose to do otherwise. For example, can an agent choose to forgo being healthy even if all the social conditions are met in her life, thereby choosing to not achieve well-being? It remains unclear how the dimension of self-determination coheres with the remaining five dimensions of well-being and the extent of society’s obligations toward an individual’s achievement of well-being, even in those instances when society’s actions may go against an individual’s right to self-determination. (shrink)

Background: Demand for organisational ethics capacity is growing in health organisations, particularly among managers. The role of clinical ethicists in, and perspective on, organisational ethics has not been well described or documented in the literature. Objective: To describe clinical ethicists’ perspectives on organisational ethics issues in their hospitals, their institutional role in relation to organisational ethics, and their perceived effectiveness in helping to address organisational ethics issues. Design and Setting: Qualitative case study involving semi-structured interviews with 18 clinical ethicists across (...) 13 health organisations in Toronto, Canada. Results: From the clinical ethicists’ perspective, the most pressing organisational ethics issues in their organisations are: resource allocation, staff moral distress linked to the organisation’s moral climate, conflicts of interest, and clinical issues with a significant organisational dimension. Clinical ethicists were consulted in particular on issues related to staff moral distress and clinical issues with an organisational dimension. Some ethicists described being increasingly consulted on resource allocation, conflicts of interest, and other corporate decisions. Many clinical ethicists felt they lacked sufficient knowledge and understanding of organisational decision-making processes, training in organisational ethics, and access to organisational ethics tools to deal effectively with the increasing demand for organisational ethics support. Conclusion: Growing demand for organisational ethics expertise in healthcare institutions is reshaping the role of clinical ethicists. Effectiveness in organisational ethics entails a re-evaluation of clinical ethics training to include capacity building in organisational ethics and organisational decision-making processes as a complement to traditional clinical ethics education. (shrink)

The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services have recently launched themselves as the UN-sanctioned instrument for conserving nature. They seek to establish themselves as the authority in this field alongside the well-known Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in climate science. Quickly following or even before recent publication of their conceptual framework in two biology journals, they were already underway building upon it. This headlong push, we believe, is ill advised. We show how the framework is unsound as a foundation (...) for further work—in a number of ways and perhaps even by its authors’ own lights. It is therefore urgent that the IPBES thoroughly and thoughtfully reconsider their framework before too much effort is wasted. (shrink)

Guidelines around the world require children to provide assent for their participation in most research studies. Yet, little further guidance is provided on how review committees should implement this requirement, including which children are capable of providing assent and when the requirement for assent may be waived on the grounds that the research offers participating children the potential for important clinical benefit. The present paper argues that the assent requirement is supported by the importance of allowing children who are capable (...) to make their own decisions. This suggests children are capable of assent when they become able to understand the research in question. While development varies across individual children, existing data suggest most children develop this ability by approximately age 14. Until instruments are developed to assess the assent capacity of individual children, this age should be used as the threshold for assent. In addition, the importance of protecting children from harm suggests that the sustained dissent of all children, including those who are unable to provide assent, should be respected. While the assent requirement may be waived when research participation offers the potential for important medical benefit that is unavailable outside the research context, analysis suggests that children’s sustained dissent should be respected in all cases. (shrink)

Nicholas Shackel (2011) has proposed a number of arguments to save the Dipert–Bird model of physical reality from the sorts of unpalatable consequence I identified in Oderberg 2011. Some consequences, he thinks, are only apparent; others are real but palatable. In neither case does he seem to me to have deflected the concerns I raised, leaving graph structuralism on Dipert–Bird lines as problematic as ever.