scholarly journals Mechanism, autonomy and biological explanation

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonardo Bich ◽  
William Bechtel
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous System ◽  
The Other ◽  
Biological Research ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
Biological Explanation ◽  
Recent Developments

AbstractThe new mechanists and the autonomy approach both aim to account for how biological phenomena are explained. One identifies appeals to how components of a mechanism are organized so that their activities produce a phenomenon. The other directs attention towards the whole organism and focuses on how it achieves self-maintenance. This paper discusses challenges each confronts and how each could benefit from collaboration with the other: the new mechanistic framework can gain by taking into account what happens outside individual mechanisms, while the autonomy approach can ground itself in biological research into how the actual components constituting an autonomous system interact and contribute in different ways to realize and maintain the system. To press the case that these two traditions should be constructively integrated we describe how three recent developments in the autonomy tradition together provide a bridge between the two traditions: (1) a framework of work and constraints, (2) a conception of function grounded in the organization of an autonomous system, and (3) a focus on control.

Comparative Area Studies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Berg-Schlosser
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Ivory Coast ◽  
Qualitative Comparative Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
International Context ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Cross Area Studies ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Analytical Approaches

Area studies have undergone significant changes over the last two decades. They have been transformed from mostly descriptive accounts in the international context of the Cold War to theory-oriented and methodological analytical approaches. More recent comparative methods such as “Qualitative Comparative Analysis” (QCA) and related approaches, which are particularly suitable for medium N studies, have significantly contributed to this development. This essay discusses the epistemological background of this approach as well as recent developments. It provides two examples of current “cross area studies,” one concerned with successful democratic transformations across four regions (Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and East Asia), the other with political participation in marginalized settlements in four countries (Brazil, Chile, Ivory Coast, Kenya) in a multilevel analysis. The conclusion points to the theoretical promises of this approach and its practical-political relevance.

scholarly journals Theology at Thresholds: Learning from a Practice ‘In Transition’

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Muers ◽  
Rhiannon Grant
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
The Other ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Theological Ethics ◽  
Reciprocal Influence ◽  
Core Practices ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Collective Process ◽  
The One ◽  
Over Time

Recent developments in contemporary theology and theological ethics have directed academic attention to the interrelationships of theological claims, on the one hand, and core community-forming practices, on the other. This article considers the value for theology of attending to practice at the boundaries, the margins, or, as we prefer to express it, the threshold of a community’s institutional or liturgical life. We argue that marginal or threshold practices can offer insights into processes of theological change – and into the mediation between, and reciprocal influence of, ‘church’ and ‘world’. Our discussion focuses on an example from contemporary British Quakerism. ‘Threshing meetings’ are occasions at which an issue can be ‘threshed out’ as part of a collective process of decision-making. Drawing on a 2015 small-scale study (using a survey and focus group) of British Quaker attitudes to and experiences of threshing meetings, set in the wider context of Quaker tradition, we interpret these meetings as a space for working through – in context and over time – tensions within Quaker theology, practice and self-understandings, particularly those that emerge within, and in relation to, core practices of Quaker decision-making.

scholarly journals Time for a shift in focus in schizophrenia: From narrow phenotypes to broad endophenotypes

2005 ◽  
Vol 187 (3) ◽  
pp. 203-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Weiser ◽  
Jim van Os ◽  
Michael Davidson
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Genetic Factors ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Impairment ◽  
Response To Treatment ◽  
Social Impairments ◽  
Biological Explanation ◽  
Biological Substrate ◽  
The One

SummaryMany manifestations of mental illness, risk factors, course and even response to treatment are shared by several diagnostic groups. For example, cognitive and social impairments are present to some degree in most DSM and ICD diagnostic groups. The idea that diagnostic boundaries of mental illness, including schizophrenia, have to be redefined is reinforced by recent findings indicating that on the one hand multiple genetic factors, each exerting a small effect, come together to manifest as schizophrenia, and on the other hand, depending on interaction with the environment, the same genetic variations can present as diverse clinical phenotypes. Rather than attempting to find a unitary biological explanation for a DSM construct of schizophrenia, it would be reasonable to deconstruct it into the most basic manifestations, some of which are common with other DSM constructs, such as cognitive or social impairment, and then investigate the biological substrate of these manifestations.

On the Bases and Possibilities of a Scientific Psychology and Classification in Mental Disease

1899 ◽  
Vol 45 (189) ◽  
pp. 257-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Lloyd Andriezen
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural Science ◽  
Mental Disease ◽  
Biological Science ◽  
The Other ◽  
General Psychology ◽  
Scientific Psychology ◽  
Herbert Spencer ◽  
Recent Developments

Since the middle of the nineteenth century psychology has gradually come to be recognised as a branch of biological science. This is due to the influence of the works of Darwin and Herbert Spencer, of the Clinical and Neurological School of Meynert, Golgi, Cajal, Flechsig, and others, and recent developments in the Psychometric School of Fechner and Wundt on the other. The Alienistic School can render powerful aid to this movement; and though there are indications of the current in the proper direction, as shown more particularly in the work of Mercier (1) and Bevan Lewis (2), the end, however, cannot as yet be said to have been achieved, nor the movement to have become general. Psychology still lingers on the borderland of metaphysics; it has not yet been established on the firm rock of natural science. And while it thus lingers progress in knowledge is slow and restricted.

Physical Models and Physiological Concepts: Explanation in Nineteenth-Century Biology

1965 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 201-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Everett Mendelsohn
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Concept Formation ◽  
Explanatory Models ◽  
Physical Models ◽  
The Other ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
Claude Bernard ◽  
French School ◽  
Biological Laws ◽  
Analytical Tools

SynopsisThe response to physics and chemistry which characterized mid-nineteenth century physiology took two major directions. One, found most prominently among the German physiologists, developed explanatory models which had as their fundamental assumption the ultimate reducibility of all biological phenomena to the laws of physics and chemistry. The other, characteristic of the French school of physiology, recognized that physics and chemistry provided potent analytical tools for the exploration of physiological activities, but assumed in the construction of explanatory models that the organism involved special levels of organization and that there must, in consequence, be special biological laws.The roots of this argument about concept formation in physiology are explored in the works of Theodor Schwann, Johannes Müller, François Magendie and Claude Bernard among others.

Long-Lasting Legacy of Rent Controls: Perspectives on the Private Rental Market in Malta within the Context of a Dual Market

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-54
Author(s):  
Brian Micallef
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Housing Market ◽  
The Other ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Alternative Source ◽  
Rental Market ◽  
Minimum Standards ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Source Of Information

Up to a few years ago, the private rental market in Malta was a classic example of the dysfunction created by two diametrically opposed regimes – a rigidly-controlled one and a completely liberal one – co-existing side by side. Two recent reforms have sought to address this situation. The objective of this paper is to describe the state-of-play in the private rental market in Malta by providing a historical background to these recent developments. In addition to the distortions in the housing market that rent controls introduce, controls also contributed to the deterioration of the statistical infrastructure to collect data on this sector. From this perspective, the introduction of the 2020 rent reform for the post-1995 sector, in addition to providing a set of minimum standards to professionalize the market, also facilitated data collection efforts through the introduction of a rent register. This information provided an alternative source of information to complement the other data sources, which tend to be outdated, inadequate, or focus solely on specific segments of the market, thus allowing for a more detailed and complete view of the private rental market in Malta.

Drug Target Identification in Tissues by Thermal Proteome Profiling

2021 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
André Mateus ◽  
Nils Kurzawa ◽  
Jessica Perrin ◽  
Giovanna Bergamini ◽  
Mikhail M. Savitski
Keyword(s):  
Drug Target ◽  
Target Identification ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Proteome Profiling ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
Target Deconvolution ◽  
Drug Target Identification ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Fundamental Biology

Drug target deconvolution can accelerate the drug discovery process by identifying a drug's targets (facilitating medicinal chemistry efforts) and off-targets (anticipating toxicity effects or adverse drug reactions). Multiple mass spectrometry–based approaches have been developed for this purpose, but thermal proteome profiling (TPP) remains to date the only one that does not require compound modification and can be used to identify intracellular targets in living cells. TPP is based on the principle that the thermal stability of a protein can be affected by its interactions. Recent developments of this approach have expanded its applications beyond drugs and cell cultures to studying protein-drug interactions and biological phenomena in tissues. These developments open up the possibility of studying drug treatment or mechanisms of disease in a holistic fashion, which can result in the design of better drugs and lead to a better understanding of fundamental biology. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Volume 62 is January 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Cryptorchidism

1984 ◽  
Vol 5 (10) ◽  
pp. 317-319
Author(s):  
Terry D. Allen
Keyword(s):  
Endocrine Therapy ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
The Other ◽  
Testicular Function ◽  
Mechanical Problem ◽  
Hormonal Stimulation ◽  
Bilateral Disease ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Unilateral Cryptorchidism

Recent developments, particularly in the field of endocrinology, have substantially altered many conventional concepts about descended testis. The disease can no longer be viewed solely as a mechanical problem in descent, and there is an increasingly greater emphasis being placed upon the early resolution of the disorder in an effort to maximize ultimate testicular function. In this brief review, some of the controversies and current philosophies regarding this subject are explored. THE ENDOCRINOLOGIC QUESTION Although etiologic considerations in cryptorchidism have always included the possibility of inadequate hormonal stimulation, this concept has generally been overshadowed by one that emphasizes mechanical impediment to descent. This viewpoint seemed justified by the fact that endocrine therapy had never yielded more than modest results and by the feeling that it was difficult to account for unilateral cryptorchidism on the basis of a generalized endocrinopathy. After all, "if inadequate hormonal stimulation were the cause of maldescent of one testis, why did the other one descend?" The recent work of Job and associates in Paris, however, has shattered many of these arguments with the revelation that endocrine abnormalities can indeed be identified in patients with cryptorchidism and that furthermore these abnormalities canbe identified in patients with unilateral cryptorchidism as well as in those with bilateral disease.

Substance and Cognition of Biological Phenomena

1970 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-71
Author(s):  
Piotr Lenartowicz
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Chemical Substance ◽  
The Other ◽  
Natural Behavior ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
The One ◽  
Living Being

Biologists are not used to the term „substance". They prefer to say „a living being", „an organism", a „specimen of species Homo sapiens'' - for instance. Chemists, on the other hand, when they say „this is a new substance" they usually mean the same Aristotle would mean - I think. The chemical meaning of the term „substance" is closest to the one I am going to discuss in this paper. To know a substance, one has to accumulate and store a multitude of different forms of evidence concerning this „natural behavior". So that concept of the „nature" of a given chemical substance is necessarily very complex and it cannot result from a single sensation, or a momentary observation

Antimicrobial Applications of Nanoparticles

2022 ◽  
pp. 269-288
Author(s):  
Ayesha Kanwal ◽  
Zeeshan Ahmad Bhutta ◽  
Ambreen Ashar ◽  
Ashar Mahfooz ◽  
Rizwan Ahmed ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Antibacterial Activity ◽  
Side Effects ◽  
Antibacterial Agent ◽  
Antibacterial Agents ◽  
The Other ◽  
Drug Resistant ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Human Mortality ◽  
Recent Developments

Human mortality due to drug-resistant infections is becoming more prevalent in our society. Antibiotics are impotent due to abuse and/or misuse, leading to new, more expensive, and more effective medicines and treatments. Therefore, it causes many short-term and long-term side effects in the patient. On the other hand, nanoparticles have exhibited antibacterial activity against various pathogens due to their small size and ability to destroy cells by various mechanisms. Unlike antibiotics for the treatment of patients' diseases and infections, nanomaterials provide an exciting way to limit the growth of microorganisms due to infections in humans. This has led to the development of a number of nanoparticles as active antibacterial agents. Therefore, the authors have carefully reviewed the recent developments in the use of nanomaterials for antibacterial applications and the mechanisms that make them an effective alternate antibacterial agent.

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