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This article is a collective writing experiment undertaken by philosophers of education affiliated with the PESGB (Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain). When asked to reflect on questi...

Marx developed a sophisticated theory of labour under capitalism’s expanding reproduction but wrote little specifically on immaterial labour. This paper reflects on how to build from Marx’s writing...

Infantologies is a collective writing project designed to express and summarise important ideas, approaches and forms of advocacy in a short and condensed method, in order to present a network of d...

We don’t know ourselves, we knowledgeable people – we are personally ignorant about ourselves. And there’s good reason for that. We’ve never tried to find out who we are – how could it happen that ...

Western Marxism, since its Western deviation and theoretical development in the 1920s, developed in diverse ways that has reflected the broader philosophical environment. First, a theory of conscio...

Sonja Arndt, Michael Peters, Marek Tesar Introspection is a key concept in epistemology, since introspective knowledge is often thought to be particularly secure, maybe even immune to skeptical dou...

Rationality is a matter of making allowed moves within language games. Imagination creates the games that reason proceeds to play. Then, exemplified by people such as Plato and Newton, it keeps mod...

This article shares reflections from members of the community of philosophers of education in the United States and Canada who were invited to express their insights in response to the theme ‘Snaps...

Background: Pharmacists ability to directly impact patient satisfaction through increases in the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) surveys utilizing transitions-of-care (TOC) services is unclear. Methods: Retrospective analysis of TOC patients from 07/01/2018 to 03/31/2019 was conducted. Intervention (INV) patients received pharmacist medication reconciliation and education prior to discharge and post-discharge telephone follow-up. All other patients served as control group (CON). Primary outcome: Evaluate impact of TOC services on HCAHPS scores for “Communication about Medicines” and “Care Transitions.” Secondary outcomes: 30-day readmissions, quantification of prevented potential safety events, assessment of discharge prescriptions sent to the academic medical center outpatient pharmacy (MOP) for TOC patients. Results: Of 1,728 patients screened, 414 patients met inclusion criteria (INV = 414, CON = 1314). A significant improvement (14.7%; p = Conclusions: Pharmacy-based TOC models can improve patient satisfaction, prevent hospital readmissions, and generate revenue.

This paper explores relationships between environment and education after the Covid-19 pandemic through the lens of philosophy of education in a new key developed by Michael Peters and the Philosop...

Educational philosophies of self-cultivation as the foundation and cultural ethos for education have a strong and historically effective tradition stretching back to antiquity in the classical ‘cra...

Morimichi Kato Tohoku University, Japan COVID-19 is a strange disease, which 500 years ago, amid more violent diseases, wars and famine, might not have been seen to be major threat. However, today,...

In Book 2 of The Peloponnesian War, the ancient Greek historian Thucydides describes the Plague of Athens which killed an estimated 75,000 people in 430 BC, the second year of the war. Thucydides i...

On May 8, 2020, Antonio Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General warned on Twitter ‘the pandemic continues to unleash a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scare-mongering’ ‘appealin...

The Central Bank of China is testing its Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP) in the cities of Shenzhen, Suzhou, Chengdu and Xunan with the involvement of four large state-owned banks in the ...

Marianna Papastephanou University of Cyprus Since Plato’s allegory of the cave two educational-philosophical critical modes have stood out: the descriptive (reality as it is) and the normative (rea...

In this conversational article, we consider cultivating decoloniality in university education by drawing upon Jacques Ranciere’s (2010) notion of a living philosophy. Ranciere’s (2010) living philo...

Remodeling of extracellular matrix in the womb facilitates the dramatic morphogenesis of maternal and placental tissues necessary to support fetal development. In addition to providing a scaffold to support tissue structure, extracellular matrix influences pregnancy outcomes by facilitating communication between cells and their microenvironment to regulate cellular adhesion, migration, and invasion. By reviewing the functions of extracellular matrix during key developmental milestones, including fertilization, embryo implantation, placental invasion, uterine growth, and labor, we illustrate the importance of extracellular matrix during healthy pregnancy and development. We also discuss how maladaptive matrix expression contributes to infertility and obstetric diseases such as implantation failure, preeclampsia, placenta accreta, and preterm birth. Recently, advances in engineering the biotic–abiotic interface have potentiated the development of microphysiological systems, known as organs-on-chips, to represent human physiological and pathophysiological conditions in vitro. These technologies may offer new opportunities to study human fertility and provide a more granular understanding of the role of adaptive and maladaptive remodeling of the extracellular matrix during pregnancy.Impact statementExtracellular matrix in the womb regulates the initiation, progression, and completion of a healthy pregnancy. The composition and physical properties of extracellular matrix in the uterus and at the maternal–fetal interface are remodeled at each gestational stage, while maladaptive matrix remodeling results in obstetric disease. As in vitro models of uterine and placental tissues, including micro-and milli-scale versions of these organs on chips, are developed to overcome the inherent limitations of studying human development in vivo, we can isolate the influence of cellular and extracellular components in healthy and pathological pregnancies. By understanding and recreating key aspects of the extracellular microenvironment at the maternal–fetal interface, we can engineer microphysiological systems to improve assisted reproduction, obstetric disease treatment, and prenatal drug safety.

This paper, based on an invited Thesis Eleven presentation (8 August 2019), provides a ‘map of technopolitics’ that springs from an investigation of the theoretical notion of technological convergence adopted by the US National Science Foundation, signaling a new paradigm of ‘nano-bio-info-cogno’ (NBIC) technologies. This integration at the nano-level is expected to drive the next wave of scientific research, technology and knowledge economy. The paper explores the concept of ‘technopolitics’ by investigating the links between Wittgenstein’s anti-scientism and Lyotard’s ‘technoscience’, reviewing the history of the notion in the work of the Belgium philosopher Gilbert Hottois. The ‘deep convergence’ representing a new technoscientific synergy is the product of long-term trends of ‘bioinformational capitalism’ that harnesses the twin forces of information and genetic sciences that coalesce in the least mature ‘cognosciences’ in their application to education and research. The map of technopolitics systematically identifies the political relations between Big Tech and ‘new digital publics’ to reveal that the new paradigm is based on the supreme value of cognitive efficiency. There are a closely-knit cluster of concerns that frame a map of political issues about the fifth-generation technological impacts on human beings, their bodies and minds, and public institutions, not least the logic of the distribution and ownership of data, information and knowledge, and its effects on democracy.

Ruyu HungNational Chiayi University, TaiwanThis is a collective writing experiment of PESA members, orchestrating the Philosophy of Education in a New Key regarding East Asia. In 2016 the pioneerin...

Michael Peters, Sonja Arndt & Marek TesarThis is a collective writing experiment of PESA members, including its Executive Committee, asking questions of the Philosophy of Education in a New Key. Co...

There is an ecology of bad ideas, just as there is an ecology of weeds, and it is characteristic of the system that basic error propagates itself.–Gregory Bateson, Steps Towards an Ecology of Mind ...

A number of scholars have noted parallels and covergences between Wittgenstein and Foucault.1 Both thinkers focused on accounts of language and discourse as a means for understanding the social wor...

One way of looking at conspiracy is to consider it a deliberately enhanced political weapon cultivated by those who push 'fake news' in a post-truth media environment. In some cases of 'true conspiracies' and theories, it is clear that the pejorative view of conspiracy must be abandoned. They comment: The psychological literature on predictors of conspiracy beliefs can be divided in approaches either with a pathological or socio-political focus. As Raikka points out, It is often claimed that political conspiracy theories are of limited falsifiability. At the same time, he adds, 'it would be a mistake to conclude from the defence of conspiracy theorising offered here that belief in conspiracy theories is on an epistemic par with belief in other theories'. In the age of Trump, it may be permissible to talk of 'government by conspiracy'.

This paper is an experiment in collective writing conducted in Autumn 2019 at the Faculty of Education at Beijing Normal University. The experiment involves 12 international masters' students readi...

Type 2 (T2) inflammation plays a key role in the pathogenesis of asthma. IL-4, IL-5, and IL-13, along with other inflammatory mediators, lead to increased cellular eosinophilic inflammation. It is likely that around half of all patients with asthma have evidence of T2-high inflammation. Sputum and blood eosinophils, exhaled nitric oxide, blood IgE levels, and airway gene expression markers are frequently used biomarkers of T2-high asthma. Individuals with T2-high asthma tend to have several features of increased asthma severity, including reduced lung function and increased rates of asthma exacerbations, and T2-high patients demonstrate distinct pathologic features including increased airway remodeling and alterations in airway mucus production. Several monoclonal antibodies are now available to treat individuals with T2-high asthma and these medications significantly reduce asthma exacerbation rates.

In the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a lack of guidance on how to channel the unprecedented amount of health financing toward the pandemic response. We employed a multistep, interactive Delphi process to reach consensus on a "menu" of priority COVID-19 response interventions. In all, 27 health security experts-representing national governments, bilateral and multilateral organizations, academia, technical agencies, and nongovernmental organizations-participated in the exercise. The experts rated 11 technical investment areas and 37 interventions on a 5-point scale in terms of their importance to COVID-19 response. Initial findings were discussed at a virtual meeting where experts suggested modifications. A group of 19 experts then rated a revised list of 11 technical areas and 39 interventions. Consensus was defined as at least 80% of experts agreeing on the importance of a technical area or intervention; stability of scores across the rounds was identified using Wilcoxon matched-pairs and unpaired signed rank tests. Between the initial and final menu, 3 technical areas and 7 interventions were slightly modified, 3 interventions were added, and 1 intervention was removed. Consensus was reached on all 11 technical areas and 35 of the final 39 interventions, and between 34 and 37 interventions were stable across rounds depending on the test used. In this exercise, the health security experts agreed that COVID-19 response financing should prioritize interventions that enhance a country's capacity to test, trace, and treat high-risk populations. Simultaneously, supportive systems (eg, risk communication, community engagement, public health infrastructure, information systems, policy and coordination, workforce capacity, other social protections) should be developed to ensure that nonpharmaceutical and medical interventions can maximize the effectiveness of these systems.

Decades of work have elucidated cytokine signalling and transcriptional pathways that control T cell differentiation and haveled the way to targeted biologic therapies that are effective in a range of autoimmune, allergic and inflammatory diseases. Recent evidence indicates that obesity and metabolic disease can also influence the immune system1-7, although the mechanisms and effects on immunotherapy outcomes remain largely unknown. Here, using two models of atopic dermatitis, we show that lean and obese mice mount markedly different immune responses. Obesity converted the classical type 2 T helper (TH2)-predominant disease associated with atopic dermatitis to a more severe disease with prominent TH17 inflammation.We also observed divergent responses to biologic therapies targeting TH2 cytokines, which robustly protected lean mice but exacerbated disease in obese mice. Single-cell RNA sequencing coupled with genome-wide binding analyses revealed decreased activity of nuclear receptor peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ (PPARγ) in TH2 cells from obese mice relative to lean mice. Conditional ablation of PPARγ in T cells revealed that PPARγ is required to focus the in vivo TH response towards a TH2-predominant state and prevent aberrant non-TH2 inflammation. Treatment of obese mice with a small-molecule PPARγ agonist limited development of TH17 pathology and unlocked therapeutic responsiveness to targeted anti-TH2 biologic therapies. These studies reveal the effects of obesity on immunological disease and suggest a precision medicine approach to target the immune dysregulation caused by obesity.

Asthma is a heterogeneous disease, with multiple underlying inflammatory pathways and structural airway abnormalities that impact disease persistence and severity. Recent progress has been made in developing targeted asthma therapeutics, especially for subjects with eosinophilic asthma. However, there is an unmet need for new approaches to treat patients with severe and exacerbation-prone asthma, who contribute disproportionately to disease burden. Extensive deep phenotyping has revealed the heterogeneous nature of severe asthma and identified distinct disease subtypes. Acurrent challenge in the field is to translate new and emerging knowledge about different pathobiologic mechanisms in asthma into patient-specific therapies, with the ultimate goal of modifying the natural history of disease. Here, we describe the Precision Interventions for Severe and/or Exacerbation-Prone Asthma (PrecISE) Network, a groundbreaking collaborative effort of asthma researchers and biostatisticians from around the United States. The PrecISE Network was designed to conduct phase II/proof-of-concept clinical trials of precision interventions in the population with severe asthma, and is supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health. Using an innovative adaptive platform trial design, the PrecISE Network will evaluate up to 6 interventions simultaneously in biomarker-defined subgroups of subjects. We review the development and organizational structure of the PrecISE Network, and choice of interventions being studied. We hope that the PrecISE Network will enhance our understanding of asthma subtypes and accelerate the development of therapeutics for severe asthma.

usc Once commentators and policy-makers divest themselves of deep cultural Western assumptions that only democracies can prosper economically, or that capitalism and liberal democracy is a holy combination – assumptions buried in the metaphysical hard core of modernity and modernization theory – then there is a chance that Western theorists might come to be appreciate the complexities of an Asian future and China’s dominant role within it. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Public education is not just a way to organise and fund education. It is also the expression of a particular ideal about education and of a particular way to conceive of the relationship between education and society. The ideal of public education sees education as an important dimension of the common good and as an important institution in securing the common good. The common good is never what individuals or particular groups want or desire, but always reaches beyond such particular desires towards that which societies as a whole should consider as desirable. This does, of course, put the common good in tension with the desires of individuals and groups. Neo-liberal modes of governance have, over the past decades, put this particular educational set up under pressure and have, according to some, eroded the very idea of the common good. This set of contributions reflects on this state of affairs, partly through an exploration of the idea of publicness itself – how it can be rearticulated and regained – and partly through reflections on the current state of education in the ‘north’ and the ‘south.’ Refereed/Peer-reviewed

At almost every election, Americans are inclined to say that this is the most consequential election in American history. 2020 is no exception. However, what is particularly remarkable about the No...

The clinical diagnosis of new-onset type 1 diabetes has, for many years, been considered relatively straightforward. Recently, however, there is increasing awareness that within this single clinical phenotype exists considerable heterogeneity: disease onset spans the complete age range; genetic susceptibility is complex; rates of progression differ markedly, as does insulin secretory capacity; and complication rates, glycemic control, and therapeutic intervention efficacy vary widely. Mechanistic and immunopathological studies typically show considerable patchiness across subjects, undermining conclusions regarding disease pathways. Without better understanding, type 1 diabetes heterogeneity represents a major barrier both to deciphering pathogenesis and to the translational effort of designing, conducting, and interpreting clinical trials of disease-modifying agents. This realization comes during a period of unprecedented change in clinical medicine, with increasing emphasis on greater individualization and precision. For complex disorders such as type 1 diabetes, the option of maintaining the “single disease” approach appears untenable, as does the notion of individualizing each single patient’s care, obliging us to conceptualize type 1 diabetes less in terms of phenotypes (observable characteristics) and more in terms of disease endotypes (underlying biological mechanisms). Here, we provide our view on an approach to dissect heterogeneity in type 1 diabetes. Using lessons from other diseases and the data gathered to date, we aim to delineate a roadmap through which the field can incorporate the endotype concept into laboratory and clinical practice. We predict that such an effort will accelerate the implementation of precision medicine and has the potential for impact on our approach to translational research, trial design, and clinical management.

This article is a collective response to the 2020 iteration of The Manifesto for Teaching Online. Originally published in 2011 as 20 simple but provocative statements, the aim was, and continues to be, to critically challenge the normalization of education as techno-corporate enterprise and the failure to properly account for digital methods in teaching in Higher Education. The 2020 Manifesto continues in the same critically provocative fashion, and, as the response collected here demonstrates, its publication could not be timelier. Though the Manifesto was written before the Covid-19 pandemic, many of the responses gathered here inevitably reflect on the experiences of moving to digital, distant, online teaching under unprecedented conditions. As these contributions reveal, the challenges were many and varied, ranging from the positive, breakthrough opportunities that digital learning offered to many students, including the disabled, to the problematic, such as poor digital networks and access, and simple digital poverty. Regardless of the nature of each response, taken together, what they show is that The Manifesto for Teaching Online offers welcome insights into and practical advice on how to teach online, and creatively confront the supremacy of face-to-face teaching.

Marxism, we are told by politicians and the popular press, is dead. The Left, as a historical movement tied to the labor movement, is frozen over, caught between the collapse of actually existing communism in Eastern Europe and the triumph of global market forces. Union membership in the traditional industrial economy in the UK is dwindling as multinationals relocate offshore; even insurance, information, banking, and call-center jobs of the “new economy” are increasingly outsourced to India and other emergent economies literate in information and computing technology and English. China has joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) and committed itself to a postsocialist market economy. At a time of an intensification of inequalities between regions and, perhaps more significantly, between North and South—between the developed world and the developing world—the Left in Britain, the United States, and most of Europe seems ideologically gutted by the Third Way preoccupation with the social market and with citizenship “responsibilities” rather than with traditional concerns of equality and advancing rights. The best offer on hand seems to be a socialization of the market and an acknowledgment of its moral limits. Neoliberalism, in the age of privatization, reduces the state’s role more and more to one of regulation, rather than provision or funding of public services.

Monitoring and strategic response to variants in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) represent a considerable challenge in the current pandemic and for future viral outbreaks. Mutations/deletions of the virion’s prefusion Spike protein may have significant impact on vaccines and therapeutics that utilize this key structural protein in their mitigation strategies. In this study, we have demonstrated how dominant energetic landscape mappings (“glue points”) based on ab inito all-atom force fields coupled with phylogenetic sequence alignment information can identify key residue mutations and deletions associated with variants. We also found several examples of excellent homology of stabilizing residue glue points across the lineages of betacoronavirus Spike proteins that we have called “sequence homologous glue points.” SARS-CoV-2 demonstrates the least number of stabilizing glue points associated with interchain interactions among Down-state protomers across lineages. Additionally, we computationally studied variants among the trimeric Spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 using all-atom molecular dynamics to ascertain structural and energetic changes among variants. We examined both a theoretically based triple mutant and the UK or B.1.1.7 variant. For the theoretical triple mutant, we demonstrated through alanine substitutions that three key residues could cause the transition of Down-to-Up protomer states, where the transition is characterized by the “arm” length of the receptor-binding domain (RBD) rather than the hinge angle. For the B.1.1.7 variant, we demonstrated the critical importance of mutations D614G and N501Y on the structure and binding, respectively, of the Spike protein. We note that these same two key mutations are also found in the South African B.1.351 variant. IMPORTANCE Viral variants represent a major challenge to monitoring viral outbreaks and formulating strategic health care responses. Variants represent transmitting viruses that have specific mutations and deletions associated with their genome. In the case of SARS-CoV-2 and other related viruses (betacoronaviruses), many of these mutations and deletions are associated with the Spike protein that the virus uses to infect cells. Here, we have analyzed both SARS-CoV-2 variants and related viruses, such as Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), in order to understand not only differences, but also key similarities between them. Understanding similarities can be as important as differences in determining key functional features of a class of viruses, such as the betacoronaviruses. We have used both phylogenetic analysis, which traces genetic similarities and differences, along with independent biophysics analysis, which adds function or behavior, in order to determine possible functional differences and hence possible transmission and infection differences among variants and lineages.