Bottom up ethics - neuroenhancement in education and employment

Neuroenhancement involves the use of neurotechnologies to improve cognitive, affective or behavioural functioning, where these are not judged to be clinically impaired. Questions about enhancement have become one of the key topics of neuroethics over the past decade. The current study draws on in-depth public engagement activities in ten European countries giving a bottom-up perspective on the ethics and desirability of enhancement. This informed the design of an online contrastive vignette experiment that was administered to representative samples of 1000 respondents in the ten countries and the United States. The experiment investigated how the gender of the protagonist, his or her level of performance, the efficacy of the enhancer and the mode of enhancement affected support for neuroenhancement in both educational and employment contexts. Of these, higher efficacy and lower performance were found to increase willingness to support enhancement. A series of commonly articulated claims about the individual and societal dimensions of neuroenhancement were derived from the public engagement activities. Underlying these claims, multivariate analysis identified two social values. The Societal/Protective highlights counter normative consequences and opposes the use enhancers. The Individual/Proactionary highlights opportunities and supports use. For most respondents these values are not mutually exclusive. This suggests that for many neuroenhancement is viewed simultaneously as a source of both promise and concern

ATLANTIC-PRIMATES: a dataset of communities and occurrences of primates in the Atlantic Forests of South America

Primates play an important role in ecosystem functioning and offer critical insights into human evolution, biology, behavior, and emerging infectious diseases. There are 26 primate species in the Atlantic Forests of South America, 19 of them endemic. We compiled a dataset of 5,472 georeferenced locations of 26 native and 1 introduced primate species, as hybrids in the genera Callithrix and Alouatta. The dataset includes 700 primate communities, 8,121 single species occurrences and 714 estimates of primate population sizes, covering most natural forest types of the tropical and subtropical Atlantic Forest of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina and some other biomes. On average, primate communities of the Atlantic Forest harbor 2 ± 1 species (range = 1–6). However, about 40% of primate communities contain only one species. Alouatta guariba (N = 2,188 records) and Sapajus nigritus (N = 1,127) were the species with the most records. Callicebus barbarabrownae (N = 35), Leontopithecus caissara (N = 38), and Sapajus libidinosus (N = 41) were the species with the least records. Recorded primate densities varied from 0.004 individuals/km 2 (Alouatta guariba at Fragmento do Bugre, Paraná, Brazil) to 400 individuals/km 2 (Alouatta caraya in Santiago, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil). Our dataset reflects disparity between the numerous primate census conducted in the Atlantic Forest, in contrast to the scarcity of estimates of population sizes and densities. With these data, researchers can develop different macroecological and regional level studies, focusing on communities, populations, species co-occurrence and distribution patterns. Moreover, the data can also be used to assess the consequences of fragmentation, defaunation, and disease outbreaks on different ecological processes, such as trophic cascades, species invasion or extinction, and community dynamics. There are no copyright restrictions. Please cite this Data Paper when the data are used in publications. We also request that researchers and teachers inform us of how they are using the data. © 2018 by the The Authors. Ecology © 2018 The Ecological Society of Americ

Efeito de macronutrientes sobre o crescimento e qualidade de mudas de canafístula cultivadas em Latossolo Vermelho-Amarelo distrófico

Peltophorum dubium (canafístula, angico-cangalha, angico-amarelo) é uma espécie de rápido crescimento, rusticidade e ótima para uso em reflorestamentos mistos de áreas degradadas. Devido à carência de informações sobre a nutrição dessa espécie, o objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar o efeito de doses de N, P, K, Ca, Mg e S sobre crescimento, produção de biomassa e índices de qualidade de mudas H/D, H/MSPA, MSPA/MSR e IQD, e determinar a dose recomendada destes elementos. No trabalho, realizado em casa de vegetação, foi utilizado Latossolo Vermelho-Amarelo distrófico como substrato. Delimitou-se o experimento por meio de matriz baconiana, avaliando-se três doses dos seis macronutrientes e dois tratamentos adicionais, um com doses de referência e outro sem adição de nutrientes. Adotou-se o delineamento inteiramente casualizado com quatro repetições. Verificou-se, através de análise dos contrastes ortogonais, uma resposta significativa de todas as variáveis estudadas com a aplicação dos macronutrientes. Os nutrientes que mais surtiram efeitos significativos foram o P e o Mg, sendo recomendada dose de 600 mg/dm³ de P, 0,2 cmol c/dm³de Mg, e doses mínimas de 50 mg/dm³de K e 0,8 cmol c/dm³ de Ca. Não foi verificada resposta à aplicação de N e S, para nenhuma das características avaliadas, o que indica que a espécie tem baixo requerimento por estes nutrientes