| 1. |
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| 2. |
- Barabash, Stas, et al.
(författare)
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Towards low-cost Swedish planetary missions
- 2004
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- As a continuation of the Swedish tradition of designing small and high-quality spacecrafts such as Freja, Astrid, Munin, and SMART-1, Swedish scientists and engineers have proposed aggressive but feasible missions as the next national-level target: (1) an interplanetary plasma module (or subsatellite) Saga, and (2) a technology mission Prisma. The Saga micro-satellite contains a separation mechanism, technologically-challenging communication package, and plasma payload with an estimated total mass of 37kg to make the mission possible with a piggy-back launch or by attaching to another planetary mission. The Prisma mission consists of a semi-coordinated dual micro- and nano-satellites flying together in Earth orbit with state-of-art instruments to test. Both projects aim to develop and test new key spacecraft technologies.
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| 3. |
- Blomberg, Olle, et al.
(författare)
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An Account of Boeschian Cooperative Behaviour
- 2015
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Ingår i: Collective Agency and Cooperation in Natural and Artificial Systems : Explanation, Implementation and Simulation - Explanation, Implementation and Simulation. - Cham : Springer International Publishing. - 9783319155142 - 9783319155159 ; 122, s. 169-184
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- According to reductionist accounts, intentional joint action can be exhaustively analysed with concepts that are already available and anyway needed for understanding intentional singular action. Most such accounts include a condition that it must be common knowledge between the participants that they have certain intentions and beliefs that causes and coordinates the joint action (a CK-condition). Without such common knowledge, the resulting joint action supposedly isn’t an intentional joint action. I argue that reductionists should reject the CK-condition. Either the CK-condition is unnecessary or else the reductionist fails to account for the target phenomenon of intentional joint action.
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| 4. |
- Blomberg, Olle, et al.
(författare)
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Collective Responsibility and Acting Together
- 2020
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Ingår i: The Routledge Handbook of Collective Responsibility. - New York ; London : Routledge. - 9781138092242 - 9781315107608 ; , s. 142-154
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- What is the moral significance of the contrast between acting together and strategic interaction? We argue that while collective moral responsibility is not uniquely tied to the former, the degree to which the participants in a shared intentional wrongdoing are blameworthy is normally higher than when agents bring about the same wrong as a result of strategic interaction. One argument for this claim focuses on the fact that shared intentions cause intended outcomes in a more robust manner than the intentions involved in strategic interaction. We argue, however, that this in itself is not significant. The significant difference is rather volitional: The parties to a shared intention are mutually implicated in each other’s will in a distinct way. Since degree of blameworthiness depends on the quality of will an agent displays in her actions, this explains the higher degree of collective blameworthiness associated with shared intentional wrongdoing.
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| 5. |
- Blomberg, Olle
(författare)
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Common Knowledge and Reductionism about Shared Agency
- 2016
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Ingår i: Australasian Journal of Philosophy. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0004-8402 .- 1471-6828. ; 94:2, s. 315-326
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Most reductionist accounts of intentional joint action include a condition that it must be common knowledge between participants that they have certain intentions and beliefs that cause and coordinate the joint action. However, this condition has typically simply been taken for granted rather than argued for. The condition is not necessary for ensuring that participants are jointly responsible for the action in which each participates, nor for ensuring that each treats the others as partners rather than as social tools. It is thus something of a mystery why the condition is so widely accepted. By rejecting three arguments that could potentially support it, I argue that reductionists should get rid of the condition. I show that two of the arguments fail. While the third argument is intuitively compelling, it builds on key premises that are unavailable to the reductionist.
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| 6. |
- Blomberg, Olle, 1978, et al.
(författare)
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Cooperative activity, shared intention, and exploitation
- 2024
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Ingår i: Ethics. - 0014-1704 .- 1539-297X. ; 134:3, s. 387-401
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Jules Salomone-Sehr argues that an activity is cooperative if and only if, roughly, it consists of several participants’ actions that are (i) coordinated for a common purpose (ii) in ways that do not undermine any participant’s agency. He argues that guidance by shared intention is neither necessary nor sufficient for cooperation. Thereby, he claims to “topple an orthodoxy of shared agency theory." In response, we argue that Salomone-Sehr’s account captures another notion of cooperation than the sociopsychological notion shared agency theory has focused on. Furthermore, we argue that Salomone-Sehr’s interpretation of (ii) is too demanding; it implausibly makes cooperation incompatible with exploitation.
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| 7. |
- Blomberg, Olle
(författare)
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Disentangling the Thick Concept Argument
- 2007
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Ingår i: Sats. - : Institutionen för religion och kultur. - 1600-1974 .- 1869-7577. ; 8:2, s. 63-78
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Critics argue that non-cognitivism cannot adequately account for the existence and nature of some thick moral concepts. They use the existence of thick concepts as a lever in an argument against non-cognitivism, here called the Thick Concept Argument (TCA). While TCA is frequently invoked, it is unfortunately rarely articulated. In this paper, TCA is first reconstructed on the basis of John McDowell’s formulation of the argument (from 1981), and then evaluated in the light of several possible non-cognitivist responses. In general, TCA assumes too much about what a non-cognitivist is (or must be) committed to. There are several non-cognitivist theories, and only some fit the view attacked by TCA. Furthermore, TCA rests on a contestable intuition about a thought experiment, here called the External Standpoint Experiment (ESE). It is concluded that TCA is remarkably weak, given how frequently the argument is invoked.
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| 8. |
- Blomberg, Olle, 1978
(författare)
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From Simple to Composite Agency: On Kirk Ludwig’s From Individual to Plural Agency
- 2019
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Ingår i: Journal of Social Ontology. - : Walter de Gruyter GmbH. - 2196-9663 .- 2196-9655. ; 5:1, s. 101-124
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- According to Kirk Ludwig, only primitive actions are actions in a primary and non-derivative sense of the term ‘action’. Ludwig takes this to imply that the notion of collective action is a façon de parler – useful perhaps, but secondary and derivative. I argue that, on the contrary, collective actions are actions in the primary and non-derivative sense. First, this is because some primitive actions are collective actions. Secondly, individual and collective composites of primitive actions are also actions in the primary and non-derivative sense. Hence, individual action and collective action are ontologically on a par. Ludwig also exaggerates the contrast between individual and collective action by introducing a “sole agency requirement” in his account of the semantics of singular action sentences. However, sole agency is merely typically pragmatically implicated by singular action sentences, not entailed by them. If I say, “I turned on the light”, after we each flipped one of two switches that together turned on the light, then I might be misleading the audience, but what I say is true. Finally, I argue that, contra Ludwig, individuals often have “I-intentions” to bring about an event that can be satisfied even if there are co-agents who bring about the event in the same way.
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| 9. |
- Blomberg, Olle, 1978
(författare)
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How to be morally responsible for another's free intentional action
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy. - 1559-3061. ; 25:3, s. 545-579
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- I argue that an agent can be morally responsible and fully (but not necessarily solely) blameworthy for another agent’s free intentional action simply by intentionally creating the conditions for the action in a way that causes it. This means, I argue, that she can be morally responsible for the other’s action in the relevantly same way as she is responsible for her own non-basic actions. Furthermore, it means that socially mediated moral responsibility for intentional action does not require an agent to authorize another to act on her behalf, nor that the first agent threatens, coerces or deceives the second agent.
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| 10. |
- Blomberg, Olle, 1978
(författare)
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Intentional cooperation and acting as part of a single body
- 2021
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Ingår i: Mind and language. - : Wiley. - 0268-1064 .- 1468-0017. ; 36:2, s. 264-284
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- According to some accounts, an individual participates in joint intentional cooperative action by virtue of conceiving of himself or herself and other participants as if they were parts of a single agent or body that performs the action. I argue that this notional singularization move fails if they act as if they were parts of a single agent. It can succeed, however, if the participants act as if to bring about the goal of a properly functioning single body in action of which they would be parts. This latter version of the move manages to capture the cooperative character of joint intentional cooperative action, and does this without requiring of participants that they act on higher‐order interlocking intentions.
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| 11. |
- Blomberg, Olle, et al.
(författare)
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Motor Intentions and Non-Observational Knowledge of Action : A Standard Story
- 2017
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Ingår i: Thought: A Journal of Philosophy. - : Philosophy Documentation Center. - 2161-2234. ; , s. 137-146
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- According to the standard story given by reductive versions of the Causal Theory of Action, an action is an intrinsically mindless bodily movement that is appropriately caused by an intention. Those who embrace this story typically take this intention to have a coarse-grained content, specifying the action only down to the level of the agent’s habits and skills. Markos Valaris (2015) argues that, because of this, the standard story cannot make sense of the deep reach of our non-observational knowledge of action. He concludes that we therefore have to jettison its conception of actions as mindless bodily movements animated from the outside by intentions. Here we defend the standard story. We can make sense of the reach of non-observational knowledge of action once we reject the following two assumptions: (i) that an intended habitual or skilled action is a so-called basic action—that is, an action that doesn’t involve any finer-grained intentions—and (ii) that an agent, in acting, is merely executing one intention rather than a whole hierarchy of more or less fine-grained intentions. We argue that (i) and (ii) are false.
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| 12. |
- Blomberg, Olle, et al.
(författare)
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Plikt att kollektivisera?
- 2018
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Ingår i: Tidskrift för politisk filosofi. - 1402-2710. ; 22:2, s. 36-46
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- En del moraliska dilemman och samhällsproblem uppstår ur många sinsemellan orelaterade individuella handlingar eller underlåtelser, samtidigt som problemen bara kan åtgärdas genom kollektiv handling. Vi kritiserar tre sätt att resonera om ostrukturerade gruppers moraliska plikter och ansvar i sådana situationer. Därefter föreslår vi att intuitionen att en sådan grupp kan ha moraliska plikter och vara ansvarig bäst förklaras med utgångspunkt i att individer åtminstone i småskaliga fall kan identifiera sig med gruppen i en stark mening, och betrakta beslutssituationen ur gruppens perspektiv.
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| 13. |
- Blomberg, Olle, et al.
(författare)
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Practical Knowledge and Acting Together
- 2018
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Ingår i: Socially Extended Epistemology. - : Oxford University Press. - 9780198801764 ; , s. 87-111
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This chapter explores a problem that joint action raises for an influential philosophical view of the nature of intentional action. According to this view, an agent is intentionally -ing if and only if she has a special kind of practical and non-observational knowledge that she is -ing. It is here argued, however, that this view faces serious problems when extended to make sense of the possibility of an intentional action performed by several agents together. Since a general theory of intentional action should be applicable to both singular and joint intentional action, this suggests that practical and non-observational knowledge is not essential to intentional action as such.
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| 14. |
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| 15. |
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| 16. |
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| 17. |
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| 18. |
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| 19. |
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| 20. |
- Blomberg, Olle
(författare)
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Shared Goals and Development
- 2015
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Ingår i: Philosophical Quarterly. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0031-8094 .- 1467-9213. ; 65:258, s. 94-101
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In 'Joint Action and Development', Stephen Butterfill argues that if several agents' actions are driven by what he calls a "shared goal" -- a certain pattern of goal-relations and expectations -- then these actions constitute a joint action. This kind of joint action is sufficiently cognitively undemanding for children to engage in, and therefore has the potential to play a part in fostering their understanding of other minds. Part of the functional role of shared goals is to enable agents to choose means that are appropriate to realising a goal with others rather than individually. By offering a counterexample, I show that the pattern of goal-relations and expectations specified by Butterfill cannot play this role. I then provide an appropriately conceptually and cognitively undemanding amendment with which the account can be saved.
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| 21. |
- Blomberg, Olle
(författare)
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Shared intention and the doxastic single end condition
- 2016
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Ingår i: Philosophical Studies. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0031-8116 .- 1573-0883. ; 173:2, s. 351-372
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- What is required for several agents to intentionally φ together? I argue that each of them must believe or assume that their φ-ing is a single end that each intends to contribute to. Various analogies between intentional singular action and intentional joint action show that this doxastic single end condition captures a feature at the very heart of the phenomenon of intentional joint action. For instance, just as several simple actions are only unified into a complex intentional singular activity if the agent believes or assumes that there is a single end that each action is directed to, so several agents’ actions are only unified into an intentional joint activity if each agent believes or assumes that there is a single end that each intends to contribute to. Influential accounts of intentional joint action, including Christopher Kutz's and Michael Bratman's, implicitly include this condition only if participants must intend to contribute to the end under the same conception. While such a requirement successfully rules out some counterexamples, it also makes the accounts unable to appropriately accommodate and explain clear cases of intentional joint action that they ought to be able to accommodate and explain
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| 22. |
- Blomberg, Olle, et al.
(författare)
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Team reasoning and collective moral obligation
- 2024
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Ingår i: Social Theory and Practice. - : Philosophy Documentation Center. - 0037-802X.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We propose a new account of collective moral obligation. We argue that several agents have a moral obligation together only if they each have (i) a context-specific capacity to view their situation from the group’s perspective, and (ii) at least a general capacity to deliberate about what they ought to do together. Such an obligation is irreducibly collective, in that it doesn’t imply that the individuals have any obligations to contribute to what is required of the group. We highlight various distinctive features of our account. One such feature is that moral obligations are always relative to an agential perspective.
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| 23. |
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| 24. |
- Blomberg, Olle, 1978
(författare)
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Team reasoning, mode, and content
- 2023
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Ingår i: Value, Morality & Social Reality: Essays dedicated to Dan Egonsson, Björn Petersson & Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen. - Lund : Lund University Press. - 9789189415669 ; , s. 39-54
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A “we-intention” is the kind of intention that an individual acts on when participating in joint intentional action. In discussions about what characterises such a we-intention, one fault line concerns whether the “we-ness” is a feature of a we-intention’s mode or content. According to Björn Petersson, it is an agent-perspectival feature of its mode. Petersson argues that content accounts are incompatible with theories of so-called “group identification” and “team reasoning”. Insofar as such group identification and team reasoning are commonplace in many joint action situations, such an incompatibility would be a serious problem for content accounts. I here argue, however, that Petersson’s incompatibility thesis should be rejected.
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| 25. |
- Blomberg, Olle, 1978
(författare)
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Tuomela on social norms and group-social normativity
- 2023
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Ingår i: Tuomela on Sociality / Miguel Garcia-Godinez and Rachael Mellin (eds.). - Cham : Palgrave Macmillan. - 2947-552X .- 2947-5538. - 9783031226250 ; , s. 219-241
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In everyday life, as members of larger or smaller groups, we hold each other accountable with respect to social norms. For this practice to be intelligible, we must arguably by and large be justified in demanding that other group members comply with these norms. Other things being equal, it seems that we have a group membership-based pro tanto reason to comply with the social norms of our group. In this chapter, I examine how such demands and reasons for compliance can be explained and made intelligible. I do this by first presenting and discussing Raimo Tuomela’s individualistic account of social norms from The Importance of Us (1995). I argue that this and similar individualistic accounts fail to make sense of how our practice of holding each other accountable with respect to social norms can be justified. This provides a reason to try some holistic medicine. I therefore discuss Tuomela’s later irreducibly collectivistic “we-mode” account of social norms from The Philosophy of Sociality (2007). This account promises to make sense of social-norm accountability, but it also carries with it some philosophical baggage.
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| 26. |
- Blomberg, Olle
(författare)
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We-experiences, common knowledge and the mode approach to collective intentionality
- 2018
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Ingår i: Journal of Social Philosophy. - : Wiley. - 1467-9833 .- 0047-2786. ; 49:1, s. 183-203
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- According to we-mode accounts of collective intentionality, an experience is a “we-experience”—that is, part of a jointly attentional episode—in virtue of the way or mode in which the content of the experience is given to the subject of experience. These accounts are supposed to explain how a we-experience can have the phenomenal character of being given to the subject “as ours” rather than merely “as my experience” (Zahavi 2015), and do so in a relatively conceptually and cognitively undemanding way. Galotti and Frith (2013) and Schmitz (2017) present we-mode accounts that are supposed to, in particular, avoid the need for the subjects of experience to have common knowledge of each other’s perceptual beliefs. In this paper, drawing in part on Schutz’s (1932/1967; 1953) writings on “the pure We-relationship”, I argue that appeal to a we-mode does not render common knowledge unnecessary. To explain when we-experiences are veridical, we-mode accounts must (i) explain how a we-experience can enable rational interpersonal coordination in some high-risk situations and (ii) explain why what is experienced is “out in the open” between the subjects of the we-experience. To do this, proponents of we-mode accounts need an account of common knowledge. In addition, they must specify which inferences hold between we-mode and I-mode attitudes, and explain why these inferences hold. In light of this, we-mode accounts fare no better than content accounts in illuminating how basic forms of collective intentionality are possible.
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| 27. |
- Blomberg, Olle, 1978
(författare)
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What We Ought to Do: The Decisions and Duties of Non-agential Groups
- 2020
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Ingår i: Journal of Social Ontology. - : Walter de Gruyter GmbH. - 2196-9663 .- 2196-9655. ; 6:1, s. 101-116
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In ordinary discourse, a single duty is often attributed to a plurality of agents. In 'Group Duties: Their Existence and Their Implications for Individuals', Stephanie Collins claims that such attributions involve a "category error". I critically discuss Collins’ argument for this claim and argue that there is a substantive sense in which non-agential groups can have moral duties. A plurality of agents can have a single duty to bring about an outcome by virtue of a capacity of each to practically reason about what they ought to do together. I also argue that Collins’ attempt to give a reductive account of such "we-reasoning" fails.
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| 28. |
- Edholm, Olle, et al.
(författare)
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Stretched exponentials and barrier distributions
- 2000
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Ingår i: Chemical Physics. - 0301-0104 .- 1873-4421. ; 252:02-jan, s. 221-225
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Non exponential relaxation in complex macromolecular systems may be the consequence of dispersedness giving rise to different free energy barriers for different molecules. An approximate analytic formula that relates the time derivative of the decaying function to a probability distribution for the barrier is derived. From this, so called stretched exponentials, e(-t beta),are obtained from barrier distributions with width k(B)T/beta in energy and some asymmetry towards low energies. They may be represented as double exponential functions. An exact general formula that relates the Fourier transforms of the barrier height distribution and the time decaying function is also derived. This is gives a much more stable method for the numerical determination of the barrier height distribution than direct inversion of the Laplace transform.
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| 29. |
- Engström, Gunnar, et al.
(författare)
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The Swedish CArdioPulmonary BioImage Study : objectives and design
- 2015
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Ingår i: Journal of Internal Medicine. - : Wiley. - 0954-6820 .- 1365-2796. ; 278:6, s. 645-659
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Cardiopulmonary diseases are major causes of death worldwide, but currently recommended strategies for diagnosis and prevention may be outdated because of recent changes in risk factor patterns. The Swedish CArdioPulmonarybioImage Study (SCAPIS) combines the use of new imaging technologies, advances in large-scale 'omics' and epidemiological analyses to extensively characterize a Swedish cohort of 30 000 men and women aged between 50 and 64 years. The information obtained will be used to improve risk prediction of cardiopulmonary diseases and optimize the ability to study disease mechanisms. A comprehensive pilot study in 1111 individuals, which was completed in 2012, demonstrated the feasibility and financial and ethical consequences of SCAPIS. Recruitment to the national, multicentre study has recently started.
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| 30. |
- Ericson, Elke, 1973, et al.
(författare)
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Genetic pleiotropy in Saccharomyces cerevisiae quantified by high-resolution phenotypic profiling
- 2006
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Ingår i: Molecular Genetics and Genomics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1617-4615 .- 1617-4623. ; 275:6, s. 605-614
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Genetic pleiotropy, the ability of a mutation in a single gene to give rise to multiple phenotypic outcomes, constitutes an important but incompletely understood biological phenomenon. We used a highresolution and high-precision phenotypic profiling approach to quantify the fitness contribution of genes on the five smallest yeast chromosomes during different forms of environmental stress, selected to probe a wide diversity of physiological features. We found that the extent of pleiotropy is much higher than previously claimed; 17% of the yeast genes were pleiotropic whereof one-fifth were hyper-pleiotropic. Pleiotropic genes preferentially participate in functions related to determination of protein fate, cell growth and morphogenesis, signal transduction and transcription. Contrary to what has earlier been proposed we did not find experimental evidence for slower evolutionary rate of pleiotropic genes/proteins. We also refute the existence of phenotypic islands along chromosomes but report on a remarkable loss both of pleiotropy and of phenotypic penetrance towards chromosomal ends. Thus, the here reported features of pleiotropy both have implications on our understanding of evolutionary processes as well as the mechanisms underlying disease.
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| 31. |
- Fernandez-Ricaud, Luciano, 1975, et al.
(författare)
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PROPHECY - a database for high-resolution phenomics
- 2005
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Ingår i: Nucleic Acids Research. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0305-1048 .- 1362-4962. ; 33
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The rapid recent evolution of the field phenomics—the genome-wide study of gene dispensability by quantitative analysis of phenotypes—has resulted in an increasing demand for new data analysis and visualization tools. Following the introduction of a novel approach for precise, genome-wide quantification of gene dispensability in Saccharomyces cerevisiae we here announce a public resource for mining, filtering and visualizing phenotypic data—the PROPHECY database. PROPHECY is designed to allow easy and flexible access to physiologically relevant quantitative data for the growth behaviour of mutant strains in the yeast deletion collection during conditions of environmental challenges. PROPHECY is publicly accessible at http://prophecy.lundberg.gu.se.
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| 32. |
- Fernandez-Ricaud, Luciano, 1975, et al.
(författare)
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PROPHECY—a yeast phenome database, update 2006
- 2007
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Ingår i: Nucleic Acids Research. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0305-1048 .- 1362-4962. ; 35
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Connecting genotype to phenotype is fundamental in biomedical research and in our understanding of disease. Phenomics—the large-scale quantitative phenotypic analysis of genotypes on a genome-wide scale—connects automated data generation with the development of novel tools for phenotype data integration, mining and visualization. Our yeast phenomics database PROPHECY is available at http://prophecy.lundberg.gu.se. Via phenotyping of 984 heterozygous diploids for all essential genes the genotypes analysed and presented in PROPHECY have been extended and now include all genes in the yeast genome. Further, phenotypic data from gene overexpression of 574 membrane spanning proteins has recently been included. To facilitate the interpretation of quantitative phenotypic data we have developed a new phenotype display option, the Comparative Growth Curve Display, where growth curve differences for a large number of mutants compared with the wild type are easily revealed. In addition, PROPHECY now offers a more informative and intuitive first-sight display of its phenotypic data via its new summary page. We have also extended the arsenal of data analysis tools to include dynamic visualization of phenotypes along individual chromosomes. PROPHECY is an initiative to enhance the growing field of phenome bioinformatics
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| 33. |
- Fernandez-Ricaud, L., et al.
(författare)
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Testing of Chromosomal Clumping of Gene Properties
- 2009
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Ingår i: Statistical Applications in Genetics and Molecular Biology. - 1544-6115. ; 8:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Clumping of gene properties like expression or mutant phenotypes along chromosomes is commonly detected using completely random null-models where their location is equally likely across the chromosomes. Interpretation of statistical tests based on these assumptions may be misleading if dependencies exist that are unequal between chromosomes or in different chromosomal parts. One such regional dependency is the telomeric effect, observed in several studies of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, under which e. g. essential genes are less likely to reside near the chromosomal ends. In this study we demonstrate that standard randomisation test procedures are of limited applicability in the presence of telomeric effects. Several extensions of such standard tests are here suggested for handling clumping simultaneously with regional differences in essentiality frequencies in sub-telomeric and central gene positions. Furthermore, a general non-homogeneous discrete Markov approach for combining parametrically modelled position dependent probabilities of a dichotomous property with a simple single parameter clumping is suggested. This Markov model is adapted to the observed telomeric effects and then simulations are used to demonstrate properties of the suggested modified randomisation tests. The model is also applied as a direct alternative tool for statistical analysis of the S. cerevisiae genome for clumping of phenotypes.
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| 34. |
- Lymer, Gustav, 1978-, et al.
(författare)
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Experimental Philosophy, Ethnomethodology, and Intentional Action : A Textual Analysis of the Knobe Effect
- 2019
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Ingår i: Human Studies. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0163-8548 .- 1572-851X. ; 42:4, s. 673-694
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In “Intentional action and side-effects in ordinary language” (2003), Joshua Knobe reported an asymmetry in test subjects’ responses to a question about intentionality: subjects are more likely to judge that a side effect of an agent’s intended action is intentional if they think the side effect is morally bad than if they think it is morally good. This result has been taken to suggest that the concept of intentionality is an inherently moral concept. In this paper, we draw attention to the fact that Knobe’s original interpretation of the results is based on an abstract rendering of the central scenario (the Chairman scenario) that is significantly different from the vignettes presented to the survey participants. In particular, the experimental vignettes involve temporal and social dimensions; they portray sequences of social actions involving an agent and an interlocutor, rather than a lone agent making a momentary decision in light of certain attitudes. Through textual analyses of a set of vignettes used to study the Knobe effect, drawing on ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, and discursive psychology, we show that there are many differences between the experimental conditions besides the moral valence of the side effect. In light of our textual analyses, we discuss vignette methodology in experimental philosophy and suggest an alternative interpretation of Knobe’s original experimental results. We also argue that experimental philosophy could benefit from considering research on naturally occurring social interaction as an alternative source of empirical findings for discussions of folk-psychological concepts.
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| 35. |
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| 36. |
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| 37. |
- Schmidt, Peter, et al.
(författare)
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Pig islet xenotransplantation : activation of porcine endogenous retrovirus in the immediate post-transplantation period
- 2005
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Ingår i: Xenotransplantation. - : Wiley. - 0908-665X .- 1399-3089. ; 12:6, s. 450-456
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERV) are considered as the main infectious barrier in islet xenotransplantation. PERV has been shown to infect, but not to cause symptomatic disease in mice after islet transplantation. In vivo activation of PERV have so far not been examined. Expression of PERV was examined in adult and fetal porcine islets with or without the presence of known retroviral inducers or after transplantation to rats. METHODS: Isolated adult and fetal porcine islets were cultured under normal conditions or in the presence of dexamethasone or 5-azacytidine and 5-iodo-2-deoxyuridine. PERV mRNA content was analyzed by real-time quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and culture supernatants were analyzed for the presence of retroviral RT. Also, fetal islets were transplanted under the kidney capsule of immunocompetent or nude athymic rats. Expression of PERV mRNA in the grafts was evaluated by real-time quantitative RT-PCR. Infiltration of immunocompetent cells were evaluated by immunohistochemistry. RESULTS: Both fetal and adult islets in culture produced small or even undetectable amounts of PERV mRNA and retroviral RT. PERV expression was not enhanced by retroviral inducers. In contrast, activation of PERV expression was observed the first day after transplantation of fetal islet-like cell clusters in both athymic and normal rats. PERV expression peaked after 1 to 3 days and was then rapidly returned to background levels. PERV expression neither correlated with the innate immune response seen in athymic rats nor with the specific process of rejection in normal rats. CONCLUSION: Both fetal and adult islets produce low amounts of PERV mRNA in culture. After transplantation PERV expression is induced, seemingly independent of both the unspecific inflammatory response and the specific T-cell-mediated rejection process. It is speculated that PERV expression is correlated with the level of hypoxia in the islet xenograft.
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- Tejle, Katarina, 1945-
(författare)
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Leishmania donovani Lipophosphoglycan : Modulation of Macrophage and Dendritic Cell Function
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Leishmania donovani is a blood-borne tropicial parasite, which infects humans through bites by Phlebotomus sandflies. The parasite survives and multiplies inside macrophages in inner organs, and causes the deadly disease visceral leishmaniasis (Kala-Azar).Macrophages and dendritic cells (DC) are professional antigen-presenting cells involved in the initiation of immune responses. Immature DC are present in all tissues where they internalise and process antigen, in response to which they migrate from tissue, into draining lymphoid organs, undergo maturation and present antigens to lymphocytes. Control measures for leishmaniasis include testing of new diagnostics and development of affordable and effective vaccines for humans.Lipophosphoglycan (LPG) is the major surface component of Leishmania donovani promastigotes. LPG comprises a membrane-anchoring lysophosphatidylinositol part and an extracellular chain of disaccharide phosphates. These repetitions are crucial for parasite survival inside macrophages following phagocytosis. LPG has several specific effects on the host cell including inhibition of protein kinase C (PKC) activity, and inhibition of phagosomal maturation, a process requiring depolymerization of periphagosomal F-actin.Confocal microscopy and image analysis were used to follow F-actin dynamics in single macrophages during phagocytosis of L. donovani promastigotes and LPG-coated particles. F-actin did not depolymerize, but instead progressively polymerized around phagosomes with LPG-containing prey. This correlated with reduced translocation of PKCα to the phagosome and blocked phagosomal maturation. LPG also inhibited cortical actin turnover, which could be the underlying cause of the reduced uptake of LPG-containing prey. Extracellular- and intracellular calcium was necessary for phagocytosis, periphagosomal F-actin breakdown and phagosomal maturation in macrophages interacting with unopsonized prey,and for the action of LPG.We also studied F-actin turnover in macrophages overexpressing dominant-negative (DN) PKCα. DN PKCα macrophages showed increased amounts of cortical F-actin, decreased phagocytic capacity, inhibition of periphagosomal F-actin breakdown and defective phagosomal maturation. When DN PKCα macrophages interacted with LPG-containing prey, phagocytosis was almost completely blocked.Moreover, we found that Leishmania promastigotes and particularly LPG inhibit DC maturation and detachment from distinct surfaces. Thus, LPG from Leishmania donovani could directly inhibit DC migration to lymphoid organs, antigen-presentation and development of immunity.
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