The pro-life argument from substantial identity and the pro-choice argument from asymmetric value: a reply to Patrick Lee

Lee claims that foetuses and adult humans are phases of the same identical substance, and thus have the same moral status because: first, foetuses and adults are the same physical organism, and second, the development from foetus to adult is quantitative and thus not a change of substance. Versus the first argument, I contend that the fact that foetuses and adults are the same physical organism implies only that they are the same thing but not the same substance, much as living adults and their corpses are the same thing (same body) but not the same substance. Against Lee's second argument, I contend that Lee confuses the nature of a process with the nature of its result. A process of quantitative change can produce a change in substance. Lee also fails to show that foetuses are rational and thus have all the essential properties of adults, as required for them to be the same substance. Against the pro-choice argument from asymmetric value (that only the fact that a human has become conscious of its life and begun to count on its continuing can explain human life's asymmetric moral value, i.e. that it is vastly worse to kill a human than not to produce one), Lee claims that foetus's lives are asymmetrically valuable to them before consciousness. This leads to counterintuitive outcomes, and it confuses the goodness of life (a symmetric value that cannot account for why it is worse to kill a human than not produce one) with asymmetric value.     

WHAT IS IT TO BE A DAUGHTER? IDENTITIES UNDER PRESSURE IN DEMENTIA CARE

This article concentrates on the care for people who suffer from progressive dementia. Dementia has a great impact on a person’s well‐being as well as on his or her social environment. Dealing with dementia raises moral issues and challenges for participants, especially for family members. One of the moral issues in the care for people with dementia is centred on responsibilities; how do people conceive and determine their responsibilities towards one another? To investigate this issue we use the theoretical perspective of Margaret Walker. She states that ideas about identity play a crucial role in patterns of normative expectations with regard to the distribution of responsibilities in daily practices of care. The results of this study show how the identity of a family‐member is put under pressure and changes during her loved one’s illness that leads to difficulties and misunderstandings concerning the issue of responsibility. These results offer an insight into the complexities of actual practices of responsibility and highlight the importance for those caring for people with dementia of attending carefully to how they see themselves and how they see other people involved (Who am I? Who do I want to be for the other?). Answers to such questions show what people expect from themselves and from one another, and how they, at any rate, are distributing responsibilities in a given situation. Professional caregivers should take into account that family members might have different ideas about who they are and consequently about what their responsibilities are.     

Floral initiation and inflorescence architecture: a comparative view

BACKGROUND: A huge variety of plant forms can be found in nature. This is particularly noticeable for inflorescences, the region of the plant that contains the flowers. The architecture of the inflorescence depends on its branching pattern and on the relative position where flowers are formed. In model species such as Arabidopsis thaliana or Antirrhinum majus the key genes that regulate the initiation of flowers have been studied in detail and much is known about how they work. Studies being carried out in other species of higher plants indicate that the homologues of these genes are also key regulators of the development of their reproductive structures. Further, changes in these gene expression patterns and/or function play a crucial role in the generation of different plant architectures. SCOPE: In this review we aim to present a summarized view on what is known about floral initiation genes in different plants, particularly dicotyledonous species, and aim to emphasize their contribution to plant architecture.     

Polypeptide from Chlamys farreri inhibits UVB-induced HaCaT cells apoptosis via inhibition CD95 pathway and reactive oxygen species

Polypeptide from Chlamys farreri (PCF) is a novel marine active product isolated from gonochoric Chinese scallop Chlamys farreri which has recently been found to be an effective antioxidant. In this study, we assessed the effect of PCF on UVB-induced intracellular signalling of apoptosis in HaCaT cells. Pre-treatment with PCF significantly inhibited UVB-induced apoptosis in HaCaT cells. PCF strongly reduced the intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) level followed by inhibiting the release of cytochrome c. The expression of CD95 and Fas-associating protein with death domain (FADD) was eliminated in a dose-dependent manner by PCF pre-treatment in UVB-irradiated HaCaT cells, followed by inhibition of cleavage of procaspase-8, whose activation induced cell apoptosis. Furthermore, pre-treatment with the ROS scavenger N-acetylcysteine (NAC) and the caspase-8 inhibitor z-IETD-fmk was found to effectively prevent UVB-induced apoptosis, suggesting that UVB-induced HaCaT cell apoptosis was partially due to generation of ROS and activation of the caspase-8 pathway. Consequently, the protective effect of PCF against UVB irradiation in HaCaT cells is exerted by suppression of generation of ROS followed by inhibition of cytochrome c release and inactivation of Fas-FADD-caspase-8 pathway, resulting in blockage of UVB-induced apoptosis.     

Parameters controlling the gene-targeting frequency at the Sphingomonas species rrn site and expression of the methyl parathion hydrolase gene

AIMS: To investigate the key parameters controlling the exogenous methyl parathion hydrolase (MPH) gene mpd-targeting frequency at the ribosomal RNA operon (rrn) site of Sphingomonas species which has a wide range of biotechnological applications. METHODS AND RESULTS: Targeting vectors with different homology lengths and recipient target DNA with different homology identities were used to investigate the parameters controlling the targeting frequency at the Sphingomonas species rrn site. Targeting frequency decreased with the reduction of homology length, and the minimal size for normal homologous recombination was >100 bp. Homologous recombination could succeed even if there were 3-4% mismatches; however, targeting frequency decreased with increasing sequence divergence. The Red recombination system could increase the targeting frequency to some extent. Targeting of the mpd gene to the rrn site did not affect cell viability and resulted in an increase of MPH-specific activity in recombinants. CONCLUSIONS: Targeting frequency was affected by homology length, identity and the Red recombination system. The rrn site is a good target site for the expression of exogenous genes. SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY: This work is useful as a foundation for a better understanding of recombination events involving homologous sequences and for the improved manipulation of Sphingomonas genes in biotechnological applications.     

Plant traits respond to the competitive neighbourhood at different spatial and temporal scales

Background and Aims Clonal plants can plastically modify their traits in response to competition, but little is known regarding the spatio-temporal scale at which a competitive neighbourhood determines the variability in species traits. This study tests the hypothesis that the local neighbourhood can be expected to influence the processes that are involved in competition tolerance and avoidance, and that this effect depends on organ lifespan.Methods Fragments of the rhizomatous Elytrigia repens (Poaceae) were sampled in 2012 in experimental plant communities that varied in species identity and abundance. These communities had been cultivated since 2009 in mesocosms in a common garden. Fragment performance, shoot and clonal traits were measured, and the effects of past and present local neighbourhoods of five different radius sizes (5–25 cm) were examined. Past and present local neighbourhood compositions were assessed in 2011 and 2012, respectively.Key Results Most of the measured traits of E. repens responded to the local neighbourhood (5–10 cm radius), with an additional effect of the larger neighbourhood (20–25 cm radius) on ramet height, leaf dry matter content, maximal internode length and specific rhizome mass. Contrary to the expectation of the hypothesis, the temporal influence was not due to the organ lifespan. Indeed, five of the eight traits studied responded to both the past and present neighbourhoods. With the exception of specific rhizome mass, all trait responses were explained by the abundance of specific species.Conclusions This study demonstrates that the traits of a single clonal individual can respond to different competitive environments in space and time. The results thus contribute to the understanding of competition mechanisms.     

Being Muslim and being Irish after 9/11: self-conceptions of place in Irish society

There has been a significant, well-established if somewhat invisible Muslim population in Ireland since the 1950s. An increase in immigration during the Celtic tiger years along with the hysteria of 9/11 caused a rapid visibilization of this population. Muslims became synonymous with extremism and terrorism, but also fell victim to racist constructions emerging from the economic decline. The experience of Muslim youth since 9/11 has been well researched in the UK and Europe, however there has been little empirical work conducted with Ireland’s Muslim communities. In the literature, it is assumed that the British experience is replicated for Muslim youth in Ireland – this is not the case. This paper examines the lived experience of Irish Muslim youth given the visibilization of Islam after 9/11 and their ensuing experiences of Irishness. An analysis of ethnographic data reveals the idiosyncratic experiences of these youth growing up in the shadow of a discriminatory and Islamophobic narrative on extremism and terrorism and an evolving immigrant landscape.     

Reluctant pluralists: European Muslims and essentialist identities

An emerging consensus among scholars of Muslim political and social identity suggests that Western Muslims live out an anti-essentialist critique of identity construction. Considering this view, this paper examines a cross-national comparison of British Bangladeshis in London and Spanish Moroccans in Madrid that solicits the perceptions of working-class Muslim men. While the results indeed reaffirm respondents' concomitant relationships to a variety of identity paradigms, interview content demonstrates that subjects' multiplicity is complicated by their desire to meet – not reject – the essentialist standards of belonging to the identity paradigms discursively available to them. Rather than defiantly cherry-picking preferred characteristics of religion, ethnicity and nationality, individuals' responses suggest that they are trying to fulfil perceived standards of authenticity. Such a contention helps explain the prevalence of Western Muslims' expressed and well-documented ‘identity crisis’, suggests the enduring relevance of identity essentialisms, and more broadly, complicates post-modern conceptions of identity formation.     

The end of late-generation European ethnicity in America?

Exploring late-generation ethnicity automatically raises a long-ignored question: whether it will end and how: through what terminal stages and processes? In America, this question currently makes sense only for late-generation descendants of the European immigration wave that lasted roughly from the 1870s to 1924. However, answering it prepares the ground for eventually asking it also about late-generation ethnics in newer waves of immigration.