The Social Epistemology of Experimental Economics

Ana Cristina Cordeiro dos Santos was born in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1971. She received her B.Sc. degree in Economics from Technical University of Lisbon, in Portugal, in 1994, and a MA degree in Social Policy from Roskilde University, in Denmark, in 1995. Since 1996 she has been a teaching assistant at Instituto Superior de Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa (ISCTE), in Lisbon. She obtained a MPhil degree in Philosophy of Economics at the Erasmus Institute for Philosophy of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam, in 2001. She completed her Ph.D. in Philosophy of Economics at the same institute.This thesis analysed the experimental process of knowledge production. It investigated how scientists build their confidence in knowledge generated by a process in which both the means and the outcomes of knowledge production are re-constructed. The study of experimental practice in the natural and human sciences supports the view that scientists are convinced that they have produced the phenomenon of interest when they achieve a three-way coherence between the three components of the experimental system: the experimental procedure, the instrumental model and the phenomenal model. When the three-way coherence is achieved, experimenters believe that they have created an experimental system that succeeded in producing the phenomenon of interest. The relation of coherence among the three components of the experimental system justifies belief in the experimental results because the threeway alignment supports each one of them and thus the experimental result conveyed by the phenomenal model. This was the underlying principle of the argument from coherence that justifies the way by which experimenters form belief in experimental results. However, it was also noted that the three-way alignment is not sufficient to justify belief in experimentally generated knowledge. Two additional arguments were presented that reinforced the epistemic value of the three-way coherence. The argument from materiality asserts that the direct engagement of the subject matter in knowledge production (both in the natural and human domains) renders experimental results and the coherences supporting them non-trivial achievements. The coherent problem-solutions arrived at carry knowledge about the subject under scrutiny because scientists cannot fully control it to meet their prior expectations. However, the argument from materiality does not satisfactorily account for experimenters’ confidence in experimental results. The participation of the subject matter might still be severely constrained by the problem-situation at hand or by the plasticity of the experimental systems. The argument from sociality asserts that the social dimension of knowledge production encourages the generation of fruitful problem-situations and reliable problem-solutions by bringing to the production process a vast number of resources of practice. The three arguments in conjunction lead to a broader conclusion: the greater the number and the greater the heterogeneity of the resources (material, conceptual and social) involved in knowledge production, the higher the epistemic status of the relations of coherence established given that they are the result of practices that have explored relevant courses of action to the resolution of interesting problem-situations

Effect of cyclooxygenase inhibitors on gentamicin-induced nephrotoxicity in rats

The frequent use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) in combination with gentamicin poses the additional risk of nephrotoxic renal failure. Cyclooxygenase-1 (COX-1) is the main enzyme responsible for the synthesis of renal vasodilator prostaglandins, while COX-2 participates predominantly in the inflammatory process. Both are inhibited by non-selective NSAID such as indomethacin. Selective COX-2 inhibitors such as rofecoxib seem to have fewer renal side effects than non-selective inhibitors. The objective of the present study was to determine whether the combined use of rofecoxib and gentamicin can prevent the increased renal injury caused by gentamicin and indomethacin. Male Wistar rats (250-300 g) were treated with gentamicin (100 mg/kg body weight, ip, N = 7), indomethacin (5 mg/kg, orally, N = 7), rofecoxib (1.4 mg/kg, orally, N = 7), gentamicin + rofecoxib (100 and 1.4 mg/kg, respectively) or gentamicin + indomethacin (100 and 5 mg/kg, respectively, N = 8) for 5 days. Creatinine clearance and alpha-glutathione-S-transferase concentrations were used as markers of renal injury. Animals were anesthetized with ether and sacrificed for blood collection. The use of gentamicin plus indomethacin led to worsened renal function (0.199 ± 0.019 ml/min), as opposed to the absence of a nephrotoxic effect of rofecoxib when gentamicin plus rofexicob was used (0.242 ± 0.011 ml/min). These results indicate that COX-2-selective inhibitors can be used as an alternative treatment to conventional NSAID, especially in situations in which risk factors for nephrotoxicity are present.Universidade de São Paulo Escola de Enfermagem Laboratório ExperimentalUniversidade de São Paulo Faculdade de Medicina Laboratório de Investigação MédicaUniversidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP) Departamento de Clínica Médica Divisão de NefrologiaUNIFESP, Depto. de Clínica Médica Divisão de NefrologiaSciEL

Fire Management In Veredas (palm Swamps): New Perspectives On Traditional Farming Systems In Jalapão, Brazil

The veredas (palm swamps) of the cerrado biome are legally protected as áreas de Preservação Permanente (Permanent Preservation Areas), and the use of fire in these wetlands is prohibited. We carried out a preliminary assessment of environmental impacts of the local use of agricultural fire in veredas through a collaborative research project in Jalapão (Tocantins, Brazil). We found that "roças de esgoto" (drained peat swamp swidden fields) form the basis of the agricultural system of this region. These fields ensure production throughout the year, provide more income than "roças de toco" (rainfed swidden fields), and may function as a repository of agrobiodiversity on a regional scale. This study suggests that the use of fire in veredas associated with roças de esgoto does not lead to significant deforestation, that is, to the disappearance of the forest physiognomy, but instead helps maintain tree cover during the fallow period, possibly accelerating natural succession.19326929

Steroid hormones in murine schistosomiasis mansoni

Schistosomiasis is a neglected tropical disease, endemic in 76 countries, that afflicts more than 240 million people. The impact of schistosomiasis on infertility may be underestimated according to recent literature. Extracts of Schistosoma (S.) haematobium include estrogen-like metabolites termed catechol-estrogens that down regulate estrogen receptors alpha and beta in estrogen responsive cells. In addition, schistosome derived catechol-estrogens induce genotoxicity that result in estrogen-DNA adducts and cause hormonal imbalance. We now hypothesize the induction of infertility in individuals infected with S. mansoni also through an hormonal imbalance. Aim The aim of this study was to study a panel of steroid hormones in mice infected with S. mansoni.N/

Visualizing Structures in Confocal Microscopy Datasets Through Clusterization: A Case Study on Bile Ducts

Aiming at a better result from previous works, we employed some heuristics found in the literature to determine the appropriate parameters for the clustering. We proposed our methodology by adding some steps to be performed before the clustering phase: one step for pre-processing the volumetric dataset and another to analyzing candidate features to guide the clustering. In this latter aspect, we provide an interesting contribution: we have explored the gradient magnitude as a feature that allowed to extract relevant information from the density-based spatial clustering. Besides the fact that DBSCAN allows easy detection of noise points, an interesting result for both datasets was that the first and largest cluster found as significant for the visualization represents the structure of interest. In the red channel, this cluster represents the most prominent vessels, while in the green channel, the peribiliary glands were made more evident.Abstract—Three-dimensional datasets from biological tissues have increased with the evolution of confocal microscopy. Hepatology researchers have used confocal microscopy for investigating the microanatomy of bile ducts. Bile ducts are complex tubular tissues consisting of many juxtaposed microstructures with distinct characteristics. Since confocal images are difficult to segment because of the noise introduced during the specimen preparation, traditional quantitative analyses used in medical datasets are difficult to perform on confocal microscopy data and require extensive user intervention. Thus, the visual exploration and analysis of bile ducts pose a challenge in hepatology research, requiring different methods. This paper investigates the application of unsupervised machine learning to extract relevant structures from confocal microscopy datasets representing bile ducts. Our approach consists of pre-processing, clustering, and 3D visualization. For clustering, we explore the density-based spatial clustering for applications with noise (DBSCAN) algorithm, using gradient information for guiding the clustering. We obtained a better visualization of the most prominent vessels and internal structures.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Kinin B2 receptor regulates chemokines CCL2 and CCL5 expression and modulates leukocyte recruitment and pathology in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) in mice

BACKGROUND: Kinins are important mediators of inflammation and act through stimulation of two receptor subtypes, B1 and B2. Leukocyte infiltration contributes to the pathogenesis of autoimmune inflammation in the central nervous system (CNS), occurring not only in multiple sclerosis (MS) but also in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). We have previously shown that the chemokines CCL2 and CCL5 play an important role in the adhesion of leukocytes to the brain microcirculation in EAE. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the relevance of B2 receptors to leukocyte-endothelium interactions in the cerebral microcirculation, and its participation in CNS inflammation in the experimental model of myelin-oligodendrocyte-glycoprotein (MOG)35-55-induced EAE in mice. METHODS: In order to evaluate the role of B2 receptor in the cerebral microvasculature we used wild-type (WT) and kinin B2 receptor knockout (B2-/-) mice subjected to MOG35-55-induced EAE. Intravital microscopy was used to investigate leukocyte recruitment on pial matter vessels in B2-/- and WT EAE mice. Histological documentation of inflammatory infiltrates in brain and spinal cords was correlated with intravital findings. The expression of CCL5 and CCL2 in cerebral tissue was assessed by ELISA. RESULTS: Clinical parameters of disease were reduced in B2-/- mice in comparison to wild type EAE mice. At day 14 after EAE induction, there was a significant decrease in the number of adherent leukocytes, a reduction of cerebral CCL5 and CCL2 expressions, and smaller inflammatory and degenerative changes in B2-/- mice when compared to WT. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that B2 receptors have two major effects in the control of EAE severity: (i) B2 regulates the expression of chemokines, including CCL2 and CCL5, and (ii) B2 modulates leukocyte recruitment and inflammatory lesions in the CNS

The revolving door : evidence from the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Belgium, Greece and Brazil

The following study analyses the academic background and careers of 175 members of Governments and Central Banks of seven countries (Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Greece, Spain and United Kingdom) for the years 1975 and 2015, in order to verify whether the “Revolving Door Theory” can be applied to these cases. After some research on the curricula vitae of the members of Governments and Central Banks, we found that, for instance, that more Government and Central Bank members studied abroad for the case of the UK and US than for the other countries. We also found that it is more common for Central Bank executive members to obtain PhDs than it is the case for Government members. Moreover, external promotions in the Central Banks in 1975 were quite relevant but no cases were registered for 2015; for Governments, the trend was the exact opposite, no external promotions in 1975 but many cases in 2015. While it is not possible to find irrefutable evidence to sustain the Revolving Door hypothesis, it is still possible to find recurrent patterns in different countries that may be explained by that theory. More expanded databases and a larger selection of countries is required for that analysis

Modelos acoplados do IPCC-AR4 e o gradiente meridional de temperatua da superficie do mar no atlântico tropical : relaçoes com a precipitaçao no norte do nordeste do Brasil

Este artigo mostra como três modelos acoplados do Intergovernmental on Panel Climate Change - (IPCC-AR4), o FGOALS1. 0G – LASG do Institute of Atmospheric Physics of China, o GISSER da National Aeronautics Space Admnistration (NASA) e o GFDL_CM2 da National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), simularam a variabilidade do gradiente meridional de Temperatura da Superfície do Mar (TSM), entre os meses de fevereiro a maio, no Atlântico Tropical (1901-1999). A precipitação durante a estação chuvosa (fevereiro a maio) no setor norte do Nordeste do Brasil (NEB) foi também analisada pelos três modelos e comparada com as observações. Os modelos GISSER e FGOALS1.0G mostraram melhor desempenho na simulação do sinal do gradiente meridional de TSM no Atlântico Tropical para o período de 1901 a 1999. Destaca-se que os modelos apresentaram um melhor desempenho na simulação da tendência decadal, conseguindo explicar entre 50% a 80% da variabilidade do gradiente, com a TSM do setor sul sendo mais bem simulada