Conference on neuroscience and pragmatism: Productive prospects

The conference "Neuroscience and Pragmatism: Productive Prospects" was held on June 10, 2011 at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in Arlington, Virginia

Naturalizing Neuroethics? A Syncretic Approach

Neuroethics is uniquely situated to socially interpret what brain sciences are learning about social and moral cognition while helping society hold neuroscientific research and neurotechnological applications to firm moral standards. Both tasks, if they are to be pursued successfully, must find ways to closely relate the “neuro” with the “ethical.” Keeping them apart has been the objective of nonnaturalist worldviews worried about scientism and reductionism, and now they complain about “neuroessentialism” and similar labels for dissolutions of agency and responsibility into mere brain activity. A nonnaturalistic neuroethics, on whatever metaphysical basis, insists that the biology of brains could not explain moral decisions or ground moral norms. We agree on that much, since the methodology of brain sciences presumes, and cannot replace, behavioral and psychological attributions of moral capacity and conduct. But the social and the neurological are always related through the anthropological; and that common basis is, not coincidentally, also where the ethical is grounded, as humanity upholds persons as bearers of moral worth and moral capacity. Neuroethics, by focusing on persons, need never resort to nonnaturalism to uphold what ultimately matters for ethics, and “naturalizing” neuroethics is also unnecessary for a humanity-centered neurobioethics

A principled and cosmopolitan neuroethics: considerations for international relevance

Neuroethics applies cognitive neuroscience for prescribing alterations to conceptions of self and society, and for prescriptively judging the ethical applications of neurotechnologies. Plentiful normative premises are available to ground such prescriptivity, however prescriptive neuroethics may remain fragmented by social conventions, cultural ideologies, and ethical theories. Herein we offer that an objectively principled neuroethics for international relevance requires a new meta-ethics: understanding how morality works, and how humans manage and improve morality, as objectively based on the brain and social sciences. This new meta-ethics will simultaneously equip neuroethics for evaluating and revising older cultural ideologies and ethical theories, and direct neuroethics towards scientifically valid views of encultured humans intelligently managing moralities. Bypassing absolutism, cultural essentialisms, and unrealistic ethical philosophies, neuroethics arrives at a small set of principles about proper human flourishing that are more culturally inclusive and cosmopolitan in spirit. This cosmopolitanism in turn suggests augmentations to traditional medical ethics in the form of four principled guidelines for international consideration: empowerment, non-obsolescence, self-creativity, and citizenship

WDPM: the Wetland DEM Ponding Model

Canada First Research Excellence Fund’s Global Water Futures programme, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada’s Discovery Grants programme and by Agriculture and Agri-food CanadaPeer ReviewedThe hydrography of the Canadian Prairies and adjacent northern US Great Plains is unusual in that the landscape is flat and recently formed due to the effects of pleistocene glaciation and a semi-arid climate since holocene deglaciation. Therefore, there has not been sufficient energy, time, or runoff water to carve typical dendritic surface water drainage networks in many locations. In these regions, runoff is often detented and sometimes stored by the millions of depressions (known locally as “potholes” or “sloughs”) that cover the landscape. Conventional hydrological models are unable to simulate the spatial distribution of ponded water in prairie basins dominated by depressional storage. When the depressions are filled, the detented water may overflow to another depression, through a process known as “fill and spill” (Spence & Woo, 2003). Therefore, the fraction of a depression-dominated prairie basin that contributes flow to the outlet changes dynamically with the state of water storage within the basin. The WDPM simulates the spatial distribution of ponded water, as it is added, removed or drained, and can be used to calculate the changing connected/contributing fraction of a prairie basin

Assessing runoff sensitivity of North American Prairie Pothole Region basins to wetland drainage using a basin classification-based virtual modelling approach

Canada First Research Excellence Fund (Global Water Futures/Prairie Water)Peer ReviewedWetland drainage has been pervasive in the North American Prairie Pothole Region. There is strong evidence that this drainage increases the hydrological connectivity of previously isolated wetlands and, in turn, runoff response to snowmelt and rainfall. It can be hard to disentangle the role of climate from the influence of wetland drainage in observed records. In this study, a basin-classification-based virtual modelling approach is described that can isolate these effects on runoff regimes. The basin class which was examined, entitled Pothole Till, extends throughout much of Canada’s portion of the Prairie Pothole Region. Three knowledge gaps were addressed. First, it was determined that the spatial pattern in which wetlands are drained has little influence on how much the runoff regime was altered. Second, no threshold could be identified below which wetland drainage has no effect on the runoff regime, with drainage thresholds as low as 10 % in the area being evaluated. Third, wetter regions were less sensitive to drainage as they tend to be better hydrologically connected, even in the absence of drainage. Low flows were the least affected by drainage. Conversely, during extremely wet years, runoff depths could double as the result of complete wetland removal. Simulated median annual runoff depths were the most responsive, potentially tripling under typical conditions with high degrees of wet- land drainage. As storage capacity is removed from the landscape through wetland drainage, the size of the storage deficit of median years begins to decrease and to converge on those of the extreme wet years. Model simulations of flood frequency suggest that, because of these changes in antecedent conditions, precipitation that once could generate a median event with wetland drainage can generate what would have been a maximum event without wetland drainage. The advantage of the basin-classification-based virtual modelling approach employed here is that it simulated a long period that included a wide variety of precipitation and antecedent storage conditions across a diversity of wetland complexes. This has allowed seemingly disparate results of past research to be put into context and finds that conflicting results are often only because of differences in spatial scale and temporal scope of investigation. A conceptual framework is provided that shows, in general, how annual runoff in different climatic and drainage situations will likely respond to wetland drainage in the Prairie Pothole Region

Phase I Study of the Safety and Pharmacokinetics of Plerixafor in Children Undergoing a Second Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation for Relapsed or Refractory Leukemia

AbstractThe safety, pharmacokinetics, and biological effect of plerixafor in children as part of a conditioning regimen for chemo-sensitization in allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) have not been studied. This is a phase I study of plerixafor designed to evaluate its tolerability at dose of .24 mg/kg given intravenously on day −4 (level 1); day −4 and day −3 (level 2); or day −4, day −3, and day −2 (level 3) in combination with fludarabine, thiotepa, melphalan, and rabbit antithymocytic globulin for a second allogeneic HSCT in children with refractory or relapsed leukemia. Immunophenotype analysis was performed on blood and bone marrow before and after plerixafor administration. Twelve patients were enrolled. Plerixafor at all 3 levels was well tolerated without dose-limiting toxicity. Transient gastrointestinal side effects of National Cancer Institute–grade 1 or 2 in severity were the most common adverse events. The area under the concentration-time curve increased proportionally to the dose level. Plerixafor clearance was higher in males and increased linearly with body weight and glomerular filtration rate. The clearance decreased and the elimination half-life increased significantly from dose level 1 to 3 (P < .001). Biologically, the proportion of CXCR4+ blasts and lymphocytes both in the bone marrow and peripheral blood increased after plerixafor administration

Assessing hydrological sensitivity of grassland basins in the Canadian Prairies to climate using a basin classification-based virtual modelling approach

Canada First Research Excellent Funds’ Global Water Futures programmePeer ReviewedSignificant challenges from changes in climate and land use face sustainable water use in the Canadian Prairies ecozone. The region has experienced significant warming since the mid-20th century, and continued warming of an additional 2 _C by 2050 is expected. This paper aims to enhance understanding of climate controls on Prairie basin hydrology through numerical model experiments. It approaches this by developing a basin-classification-based virtual modelling framework for a portion of the Prairie region and applying the modelling framework to investigate the hydrological sensitivity of one Prairie basin class (High Elevation Grasslands) to changes in climate. High Elevation Grasslands dominate much of central and southern Alberta and parts of south-western Saskatchewan, with outliers in eastern Saskatchewan and western Manitoba. The experiments revealed that High Elevation Grassland snowpacks are highly sensitive to changes in climate but that this varies geographically. Spring maximum snow water equivalent in grasslands decreases 8% °C-1 of warming. Climate scenario simulations indicated that a 2 °C increase in temperature requires at least an increase of 20% in mean annual precipitation for there to be enough additional snowfall to compensate for enhanced melt losses. The sensitivity in runoff is less linear and varies substantially across the study domain: simulations using 6 °C of warming, and a 30% increase in mean annual precipitation yields simulated decreases in annual runoff of 40%in climates of the western Prairie but 55% increases in climates of eastern portions. These results can be used to identify those areas of the region that are most sensitive to climate change and highlight focus areas for monitoring and adaptation. The results also demonstrate how a basin classification based virtual modelling framework can be applied to evaluate regional-scale impacts of climate change with relatively high spatial resolution in a robust, effective and efficient manner

Focus on form: A critical review

‘Focus on form’ (FonF) is a central construct in task-based language teaching. The term was first introduced by Michael Long to refer to an approach where learners’ attention is attracted to linguistic forms as they engage in the performance of tasks. It contrasts with a structure-based approach – ‘focus on forms’ (FonFs) – where specific linguistic forms are taught directly and explicitly. However, there is perhaps no construct in second language acquisition (SLA) that has proved so malleable and shifted in meaning so much. This review article begins by considering how Long’s original definition of it has stretched over time and then offers an updated definition of the construct based on the view that the term is best used to refer to specific kinds of ‘activities’ or ‘procedures’ rather than to an ‘approach’. A classification of different types of focus-on-form activities/procedures is then presented. There follows a discussion of focus on form from a psycholinguistic and discoursal perspective along with a review of research relevant to these perspectives. The article addresses a number of criticisms that have been levelled against focus on form, with special consideration paid to how focus on form can be utilized in instructional contexts where more traditional (i.e. FonFs) approaches have been the norm

Airborne formaldehyde and volatile organic compound measurements over the Daesan petrochemical complex on Korea’s northwest coast during the Korea-United States Air Quality study

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration in partnership with Korea’s National Institute of Environmental Research embarked on the Korea-United States Air Quality (KORUS-AQ) study to address air quality issues over the Korean peninsula. Underestimation of volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions from various large facilities on South Korea’s northwest coast may contribute to this problem, and this study focuses on quantifying top-down emissions of formaldehyde (CH₂O) and VOCs from the largest of these facilities, the Daesan petrochemical complex, and comparisons with the latest emission inventories. To accomplish this and additional goals discussed herein, this study employed a number of measurements acquired during KORUS-AQ onboard the NASA DC-8 aircraft during three Daesan overflights on June 2, 3, and 5, 2016, in conjunction with a mass balance approach. The measurements included fast airborne measurements of CH₂O and ethane from an infrared spectrometer, additional fast measurements from other instruments, and a suite of 33 VOC measurements acquired by the whole air sampler. The mass balance approach resulted in consistent top-down yearly Daesan VOC emission flux estimates, which averaged (61 ± 14) × 10³ MT/year for the 33 VOC compounds, a factor of 2.9 ± 0.6 (±1.0) higher than the bottom-up inventory value. The top-down Daesan emission estimate for CH₂O and its four primary precursors averaged a factor of 4.3 ± 1.5 (± 1.9) times higher than the bottom-up inventory value. The uncertainty values in parentheses reflect upper limits for total uncertainty estimates. The resulting averaged top-down Daesan emission estimate for sulfur dioxide (SO₂) yielded a ratio of 0.81–1.0 times the bottom-up SO₂ inventory, and this provides an important cross-check on the accuracy of our mass balance analysis