Hibiscus sabdariffa Linn fruit derivatives as alternative agents for diabetes mellitus care: A basic insight

This study discusses the effectiveness of methanolic extract and fractions (butanol, ethyl acetate, and n-hexane) of H. sabdariffa Linn fruit towards antidiabetic activities (in vitro). In order to test the efficacy, toxicity and insulin secretion capacity of rat pancreatic β-cell lines (BRIN-BD11) were tested with the methanolic extract and fractions. The outcomes showed that both the extract and the fractions demonstrated significantly lower levels of cytotoxic activities. Furthermore, the methanolic extract and fractions displayed varied sensitivity levels towards insulin release after an incubation period of 30 min. The methanolic extract, at a concentration of 300 µg/mL, significantly stimulated secretion of insulin by 2.85-fold (p<0.001). In addition, butanol, ethyl acetate, and n-hexane fractions revealed a gradual increase in insulin secretion. The stimulated insulin secretion for these fractions had been recorded at 2-fold (p<0.01), 2.67-fold, and 2.31-fold (p<0.001), respectively, at the highest concentrations. The methanolic extract and fractions also appeared to stimulate secretion of insulin with all modulators present, for example, potassium chloride (KCl), insulin secretion inhibitor (verapamil and diazoxide), as well as insulin secretagogue (tolbutamide and isobutylmethylxanthine (IBMX)). These results indicate that H. sabdariffa Linn fruit methanolic extract and fractions could indeed be beneficial for future development of antidiabetic drugs.

Critical Summary and Concluding Remarks

This chapter provides a summary and a systematic synopsis of the theoretical approaches and the empirical results. It gives a comparative overview over the temporal and spatial pattern of the diffusion process and critically reflects the theoretical approaches and the applied methods. A basic insight of this comparative conclusion is that the macro-quantitative approach of network diffusion event history analysis has great benefits for global studies on social policy diffusion, but in-depth case studies still remain important for revealing the diffusion mechanisms. Future research should more systematically combine both perspectives.

The Natural Pathways to Atheism: Cognitive Biases, Cultures, and Costs

Some recent scholarship in the bio-cultural sciences of religion has argued that atheism, like science and doctrinal theology, is less natural than religion. This scholarship, however, draws on problematic natural/unnatural and nature/culture binaries that denaturalize culture and reify a more basic essence/accident binary. Here, I argue that (1) while the suggestion that religion is more natural than atheism indicates something important, it reinforces assumptions about the naturalness of cognition and the unnaturalness of culture that confuse as much as they explain; (2) a clearer understanding of atheism requires the thorough naturalization of culture; (3) multiple pathways to atheism can then be understood as natural developments of both cognitive and cultural predispositions, and analyzed along continua of religion-reinforcing cultural scaffolding and religion-fostering cognitive intuitions; and (4) finally, I suggest an economic frame for better understanding atheist expressions that construes atheism, despite its relative costs and rarity, as a natural though expensive phenomenon. Because atheist expressions are differentiated by the mechanisms (cultural and cognitive) they utilize to pay the costs of overriding religion-fostering intuitions and religion-reinforcing cultural scaffolding, all atheist expressions are naturalized along with culture; however, the basic insight, indicated by the claim that religion is more natural than atheism, is preserved.

Good’s Irreducibility: The Discordancy Argument and Aristotle

In this paper, I argue that the good is irreducible. I use the term ‘irreducible’ in a way similar to but not identical to G. E. Moore’s usage of ‘indefinable’ as found in Principia Ethica. By ‘irreducible,’ I mean that something cannot be simplified into something other than itself. For my purposes, this is to say that the good is sui generis and cannot be accounted for by anything other than itself. Inspired by what I take to be Moore’s basic insight, I develop my own argument pertaining to the uniqueness of the good. My argument goes partially beyond intuition, and hence beyond Moore, by means of applied intuitions (counterexamples). In the penultimate section, I apply the Discordancy Argument to Aristotle’s ethics, arguing that it is an attestation to the general virtue thesis that what is good does not admit of a reducible deduction. Broadly speaking, I consider the Discordancy Argument and general ethical intuitionism as justification for the Aristotelian idea that good actions are found in concrete particulars and not reducible abstractions, hinting at Aristotle’s affinity for ethical intuitionism. Furthermore, a recent debate surrounding moral ontology (per William Lane Craig and dissenters) is deemed obsolete.

»… zu direkt neutestamentlich«!? Bonhoeffer, das Alte Testament und die Frage einer biblischen Christologie

In prison, Bonhoeffer reads the Old Testament over and over again. Implicitly, by doing that, he struggles for a new theological evaluation of Judaism of whose present fate he is well aware. In view of this, it is questionable whether Bonhoeffer's new theological insights can really be read from a dogmatically fixed Christology oriented solely on the New Testament. The examples of erotic love and blessing rather show that Bonhoeffer's idea of »all earthly life being utilized to testify« for God is entirely based on the diverse spectre of the Old Testament voices. When Bonhoeffer focuses on »who Christ actually is for us today«, or how central concepts of Christian soteriology such as »repentance, faith, justification, rebirth, sanctification« are to be interpreted »in a worldly sense« - and that means to him: »in the Old Testament sense« - then he does not read the Old Testament any longer with the lenses of a fixed Christology, as he has done for long in the shadow of Barth. Rather, he anticipates the basic insight of the later Jewish-Christian dialogue that the New Testament is essentially related to the Old Testament and Christianity thus stays dependent on Judaism and its truth.

‘The cruelty of righteous people’: Niebuhr on the urgency of cruelty

This paper responds to critics of Reinhold Niebuhr by exploring two themes important for locating his views on cruelty’s emergence in modern society. The first relates to his basic insight into the relationship between individual morality and group loyalty and solidarity. Niebuhr provides a sophisticated argument for such group dynamics in his work, issued in Moral Man, Immoral Society, as well as his essays on race. These also form the basis for his second thematic argument regarding cruelty, the role of ‘righteousness’ as it relates to security and insecurity. Niebuhr’s views on race, I argue, need to be considered more broadly as an example of his views on groups, power, and cruelty. The paper concludes with some modest proposals for thinking about combatting cruelty via Niebuhr’s counsel.

Una defensa de la solución conceptualista al “problema de la fundamentación” para objetos coincidentes

I consider some of the objections that have been raised against a conceptualist solution to the “grounding problem” (the problem of grounding the sortalish properties of material objects in their non-sortalish ones), I address in particular two objections that I call Conceptual Validity and Instantiation, and I attempt to answer them on behalf of the conceptualist. My response, in a nutshell, is that the first of these objections fails because it ascribes to the conceptualist some commitments that do not really follow from the view’s basic insight, while the second objection also fails because (among other things) it (inadvertently) denies the conceptualist resources that the alternative positions are allowed to use.

Implementation of Lean in the function of production optimization: Problem framework

The paper deals with the discussion of the value framework for the implementation of the Lean philosophy in the function of achieving the optimal level of business of the organization. By systematizing the literature data, the paper provides a basic insight into the thoughts, ideas and attitudes of the Lean approach, observing it inevitably in the context of factors that affect the success of its implementation in manufacturing industries. Identifying the problem framework in which the idea of Lean philosophy is realized is one of the most critical aspects that helps organizations to identify and eliminate weaknesses of the industrial system by applying certain tools and techniques that will enable a more successful outcome of implementation of this methodology whose principles can improve company performance. The discussion of the basic methods of the Lean approach was conducted in a way that allows considering of the practical contribution of the methods in correlation with Lean as the basic strategy. The results of the research showed the existence of a wide range of complex phenomena at the level of the entire organization, which are in mutual interaction and which, by their action, hinder the certainty of the success of Lean implementation by applying pre-tested tools and methods.

Joint epistemic engineering: The neglected process of context construction in human communication

This contribution argues that a common language and its statistics do not explain how people overcome fundamental communicative obstacles. We introduce joint epistemic engineering, a neurosemiotic account of how asymmetric interlocutors can communicate effectively despite using ambiguous signals that are referentially contingent on the current communicative circumstances. The basic insight is that a communicative signal contains a multiplicity of functions and that interlocutors use those multi-layered signals to simultaneously coordinate a space of possible interpretations, declare a communicative intent, and to reduce uncertainty over the identity of a referent.

Conditional Reasoning Part II

The influential idea that the Ramsey test provides a proper analysis of the psychological means by which we evaluate indicative and subjunctive conditionals is explained. Several recent views have implicated sui generis imaginative states in the psychological implementation of the Ramsey test. The comparative relevance of the Ramsey test to indicative and subjunctive conditionals is explained. It is then argued that one can accept the basic insight afforded by the Ramsey test without concluding that sui generis imaginative states are used in conditional reasoning. A simpler, more parsimonious approach involves only beliefs. Anyone who could have used sui generis imaginative states to arrive at a belief in a new conditional via the Ramsey test could have, with equal warrant, inferred the conditional from their standing beliefs. Finally, it is shown how the imaginings that occur in response to philosophical thought experiments can in fact be sequences of beliefs.