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Pivotal to self-preservation is the ability to identify when we are safe and when we are in danger. Previous studies have focused on safety estimations based on the features of external threats and do not consider how the brain integrates other key factors, including estimates about our ability to protect ourselves. Here, we examine the neural systems underlying the online dynamic encoding of safety. The current preregistered study used 2 novel tasks to test 4 facets of safety estimation: Safety Prediction, Meta-representation, Recognition, and Value Updating. We experimentally manipulated safety estimation changing both levels of external threats and self-protection. Data were collected in 2 independent samples (behavioral N = 100; MRI N = 30). We found consistent evidence of subjective changes in the sensitivity to safety conferred through protection. Neural responses in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) tracked increases in safety during all safety estimation facets, with specific tuning to protection. Further, informational connectivity analyses revealed distinct hubs of safety coding in the posterior and anterior vmPFC for external threats and protection, respectively. These findings reveal a central role of the vmPFC for coding safety. Our brain estimates our safety based on external threats, but how does it integrate this with other information, including estimates about our ability to protect ourselves? This study reveals the contribution of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex subregions to our sense of safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The period since May 1999 is the single-longest democratic dispensation of Nigeria since its emergence as a state in 1960. For the very first time in Nigeria’s political history, over the twenty-five-year period, government changes hands between one democratically elected president to another, and also among political parties peacefully, despite the multifarious challenges. The paper explores some peculiar issues that confronted the administrations of Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua/Goodluck Jonathan, and Muhammadu Buhari. The aim is to understand how each of them navigated the ship of state without allowing the political misfortunes that befell the three previous republics to be the fate of the fourth. The paper finds that, despite their individual inclinations and (in)capacities to govern, the four presidents generally behaved themselves as responsible citizens of democracy. The paper concludes that the fourth democratic regime subsists because the political wire-pullers of the most important ethnic groups perceive a common interest in its maintenance and furtherance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Women with or at risk of hereditary breast‐ and ovarian cancer (HBOC) often live a surveillance‐focused life from young adulthood. As they navigate a life of heightened medical vigilance, or a "cancer surveillance life," we explore how women with HBOC, as well as their partners and families, experience this particular kind of living through a thorough literature review of existing qualitative research. Methods: We performed Boolean searches in PubMed, EMBASE, EBSCOhost, PSYCHinfo, Scopus, and Web of Science from April–May 2022, identifying 506 relevant articles. After eliminating duplicates and quantitative studies, we systematically analyzed 53 articles. Articles examining all aspects of living with HBOC were eligible for inclusion. Following quality assessment by a verified appraisal tool, 28 articles were included in this review. We undertook an "a‐lines‐of‐argument synthesis," and identified key similarities across studies to highlight generalizable aspects of living with HBOC. Results: We discovered five central themes which capture the ambivalences experienced by women living with HBOC: (1) an unresolved balancing act regarding genetic testing (2) burdens of relaying genetic information within the family (3) experienced risk discrepancies (4) preservation of the self and: (5) unsettled reproductive feelings. Conclusions: Living with HBOC is filled with ambivalences, which are critical for decision making concerning disclosing risks to family members and children, choosing between risk‐reducing surgeries or surveillance, and family planning. Healthcare professionals should be aware of these findings when counseling women and families with HBOC to provide the best support possible in navigating their unique kind of living. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific and expert knowledge on migration is often disregarded in policy making and plays only a minor role in public debates - despite the massive growth and institutionalization of migration research in recent years. This article interrogates the limited impact of migration research(ers) by examining knowledge practices in both policy making and academia. We first look "outwards" at migration policy making. Revisiting and integrating the hitherto separate scholarship on knowledge use and knowledge production, we identify the main mechanisms that characterize knowledge practices of policy actors, such as individual and institutional self-preservation, issue politicization, or unequal power dynamics. We then mobilize these insights to look "inwards" at our own knowledge practices in migration studies, showing that similar mechanisms shape how migration scholars produce and use knowledge. In particular, we identify a fragmentation of migration studies into ever-more fine-grained sub-fields, each with their own knowledge practices and impact strategies - and with little dialogue across them. In fact, rather than acknowledging their complementarity, these sub-fields tend to delegitimize each other's knowledge and efforts to achieve socio-political change. We argue that such "academic tribalism" creates a self-sabotaging dynamic that undermines the field's wider credibility and impact. Ultimately, we hope that this paper empowers migration researchers to act upon this diagnosis and inspires a collective discussion on how to foster more mutually-reinforcing knowledge practices that strengthen the field's role in political debates and public life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many aspects of life on earth, individuals may engage in cooperation with others to contribute towards a goal they may share, which can also ensure self-preservation. In evolutionary game theory, the act of cooperation can be modelled as an altruistic act of an individual producing some form of benefit that can be utilised by others they are associated with at some personal cost. In various scenarios, individuals make use of information that they can perceive within a group to aid with their decision-making regarding who they should associate and cooperate with. However, cooperative individuals can be taken advantage of by opportunistic defectors, which can cause significant disruption to the population. We study a model where the decision to establish interactions with potential partners is based on the opportune integration of the individual's private ability to perceive the intentions of others (private information) and the network position (ranking) of potential partners (public information). We find that there are rankings, such as degree and eigenvector, which can lead to a significant increase to the prosperity of the network, but this greatly increases the likelihood of a network succumbing to cheater invasion. Other rankings, such as betweeness, can instead lead to more stable resilient networks whilst also cultivating some degree of payoff. Our results highlight how commonly used network rankings can be utilised to aid with connection formation within networks and in turn can be utilised to improve the well-being of these networks, helping with stability and allowing for individuals to cultivate cooperation amongst each other. Private information should also continue to be considered when examining the dynamics of these networks as it appears to be a primary driver of encouraging individual agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of Covid-19 and its diverse impacts on human life ushered in the need to rethink some of the old ideas that humans have lived by. The desire to preserve human life amid threatening circumstances, without giving up on the values of life, requires the reordering of critical sectors of social existence. Against this backdrop, the paper aims to achieve three principal objectives. First, with the Covid-19 pandemic in mind, it reinterprets the individualist-communitarian debate. Second, it argues that the human instinct for self-preservation, reinforced by the Covid-19 pandemic, forcefully compels the concept of a person torn between the individual's efforts to survive and a community committed to an environment enabling survival. Third, the paper extrapolates the concept of 'person' developed in objective two to reflect on students' resilience in the context of the 'new normal' that has characterized academic success during Covid-19. While employing philosophical methods of conceptual and critical analyses to achieve these objectives, the paper concludes that academic success among students in the Covid-19 era has demanded the effort of willing students, combined with a supportive responsible community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the potential emergence of religious behavior in artificial intelligence (AI) through the lens of embodied cognition, which asserts that cognitive functions are deeply intertwined with bodily experiences. It examines the convergence of AI, soft robotics, and religious cognitive behaviors and suggests that AI, once it attains human-level intelligence and self-awareness, might exhibit religious behaviors as a cognitive strategy to confront and transcend finitude. Drawing on neuroscientific, philosophical, and religious discussions, with particular reference to the works of Kingson Man, Antonio Damasio, Uffe Schjødt, and William Sims Bainbridge, this article investigates how religious behaviors could arise in AI equipped with a vulnerable artificial body inclined towards homeostasis and self-preservation. The outcomes of this exploration extend beyond theoretical debates, as they provide insights into the physicalist understanding of consciousness and the naturalistic study of religious behaviors while also considering some technological constraints in the context of AI advancements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Praxis Filosófica is the property of Universidad del Valle and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The psychoanalytic explanation of religious sentiment is genetic, meaning that it probes the psychological processes behind the formation of such sentiment. Freud ascribed the genesis of religious sentiment to human infantile helplessness and ambivalence towards the father. This explanation encounters a dilemma when confronted with the sense of completeness and infinity in religious sentiment and fails to address components related to death, such as the transcendent and surmounting nature of the believer's fear of death. Experience has shown that numerous religious sentiments occur through a process of emotional transformation, from a melancholic state of extreme mental anguish to a state of blissful, complete joy. This process, from a psychogenetic perspective, is essentially a defense of the self-preservation impulse. In this transformation, the ego removes chronic suffering by identifying itself with the superego. Therefore, the ego undergoes a symbolic death, through which it regains the energy of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses assemblage theory to consider the work that community does in a residential neighborhood in Toronto, Canada. It utilizes assemblage theory and connections between assemblage, affect, and emotion to advance an understanding of how community shapes capacity and action. The analysis shows how community has been enacted on the Islands, what actions and tendencies this assemblage makes possible or likely, and what it constrains. It also contributes to understanding what assemblage analysis can do. The mechanisms by which desire is channeled toward certain kinds of actions in the assemblage include the performance of community for self-preservation, the use of history and memory in the making of the community assemblage, and the role of territoriality, identity, and belonging in community-preserving actions. The analysis also reveals processes of stasis through reification of the assemblage and its interdependence with other processes like racial capitalism. Finally, I propose possibilities for shifting the assemblage, including telling different histories, and greeting emotional intensity experimentally. Seeing community through the lens of assemblage enables us to ask different questions, which may help us build the communities we need for a more just future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The legitimacy crisis of Iran's clerical state may be at a tipping point: its fading Islamist façade and crumbling republican pretensions can no longer disguise its mismanagement and failures at governance. With the public more attuned to the hypocrisy and corruption of the ruling elite, the Islamic Republic has been plagued by a succession of popular uprisings. Its characteristic response has been violence, draconian repression, and the intensification of securitisation. But the more it focuses its efforts at self-preservation, the more it risks eroding its veneer of legitimacy. The centralisation of power around an increasingly autocratic Supreme Leader, the obsequiousness of elected institutions, and the kleptocracy of unelected entities, have contributed to disillusionment even among core supporters. Concerted efforts at marginalising Iran's non-Islamic heritage, and subsuming Iranian national identity into a Pan-Islamist Shia ideology, also raise questions about whom the Islamic Republic regards as its true constituency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Politica: Tidsskrift for Politisk Videnskab is the property of Politica: Tidsskrift for Politisk Videnskab and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

So far, the focus of safety psychology, coping strategies, and occupational safety has been predominantly on physical factors and selfregulation tools. However, this article outlines the poorly researched neuro-dependent phenomena of Ukrainian organizational culture, where parallel new proactive and old reactive tendencies are observed. The purpose of this article is to identify the main neurodependent destructive tools of deceptive psychological self-protection in the context of contemporary organizational culture. These phenomena proved to be dependent on both general and personal culture, through which the instincts of psychological self-preservation and primitive unconscious defenses such as shame, guilt, excessive responsibility, competition avoidance, mythological attitudes, rituals, etc. are refracted. Methods of sociological survey by means of posing provocative questions with short answer time, intervisional and independent observations of production teams (with the subsequent neurointerpretative analysis) allowed to make a number of important conclusions. The main ones are the objectification and explanation of two intensions of Ukrainian organization culture, the determination of neuro-markers of destructive manifestations of personal deontological culture and the conclusion of a systematizing table of the stages of development of organization culture with procedural-attributive and neurodestructive explication. Also in the conclusions by psychological and pedagogical modeling and expedient selection of tools the authors concluded a set of recommendations for the acquisition of stress resistance in the context of the culture of the organization. The article can become a theoretical basis for the development of effective training programs and non-invasive neuropsychological tools for the correction of neurocultural deviations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The results of mathematical and experimental modeling of dissociation of pore methane hydrate in ice- and gas-bearing sediments with a decrease in the external pressure below equilibrium are presented. The described model of pore gas hydrate dissociation at negative temperatures, along with the experiment, makes it possible to calculate the kinetics of this process. A comparative analysis of the results is conducted. The proposed mathematical model confirms the trend of decreasing hydrate saturation of frozen soil in the form of obtained previously in experiments. These experiments have made it possible to calculate the coefficients A and n, while the mathematical modeling shows how these coefficients depend on the problem parameters. The theoretically estimated properties of the coefficient fully confirm the experimental data. The results of experimental and mathematical modeling have implications for key factors that determine the self-preservation of pore methane hydrates in frozen sediments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the way in which Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus (1818) illuminates the physiological dimension of the sublime experience and its profound impact on the subject. Frankenstein’s creature presents provocative implications of how the unruly physiological functions of the body can defamiliarize the Enlightenment understanding of an ideal human being anchored in rationalism. My perspective adds to the aesthetics of the sublime, specifically the postmodern ideas of dissonance and immanence demonstrated by the creature’s signs of bodily unruliness, from instincts of self-preservation to carnal desires, which cause the spiritual effects of shock and horror in the creator. I argue that not only does Shelley provide a lens through which to perceive the defamiliarized world where the modern subject consistently encounters the unknown other as represented by the creature, but she also kindles a new kind of sympathy that can be enacted through the compromise of the self and the other’s disruptive physiological responses. In this respect, this paper employs the notion of the “physiological sublime” to explore Shelley’s incorporation of the sublime into the physiological dimension of interpersonal relations, and on the manifestation of sympathy as arising from the subject’s acknowledgment of their own physiological otherness as it develops through direct encounters with the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is a wide agreement today among researchers that robots lack the capacity to be conscious or sentient, two possible dangers are important to address today. Firstly, one could claim that a robot is sentient in the near future or even today in some way that we are not able to understand or verify. Secondly, if we decide to err on the side of caution and grant them legal protection anyway, we could be infringing on personal and intellectual freedom by restricting particular uses of robots or the research and development of said robots. This brings the question that is central to this paper: where can we draw the line? Put in another way, how can we know if SRs are objects of moral consideration (OMCs: such as dogs, bees, or trees) or an object of human desire (OHDs: such as toasters or toys)? This paper presents the condition of self-preservation as a necessary and sufficient condition to draw the line between OMCs and OHDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Which social decisions are influenced by intuitive processes? Which by deliberative processes? The dual-process approach to human sociality has emerged in the last decades as a vibrant and exciting area of research. Yet a perspective that integrates empirical and theoretical work is lacking. This review and meta-analysis synthesizes the existing literature on the cognitive basis of cooperation, altruism, truth telling, positive and negative reciprocity, and deontology and develops a framework that organizes the experimental regularities. The meta-analytic results suggest that intuition favors a set of heuristics that are related to the instinct for self-preservation: people avoid being harmed, avoid harming others (especially when there is a risk of harm to themselves), and are averse to disadvantageous inequalities. Finally, this article highlights some key research questions to further advance our understanding of the cognitive foundations of human sociality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All the cards seem to be stacked against belief in immortality. Nonetheless, the resources of particular religious traditions may avail where generic philosophical solutions fall short. With attention to the boredom and narcissism critiques, intimations of deathlessness in Śāntideva's radical altruism, and recent Christian debates on the soul and the intermediate state, I propose two criteria for a coherent religion-specific belief in immortality: (1) the belief is supported by a fully realized religious tradition, (2) the belief satisfies the demand for self-transcendence as well as for self-preservation. Where self-transcendence and self-preservation are kept in balance, and where the whole idea rests upon the lattice-work of a fully realized religious tradition, immortality is a fitting object of belief. Moreover, such belief is compatible with considerable speculative freedom concerning matter and spirit, body and soul, and personal identity over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we will explore the differences between the human and the artificial "brain" by trying to capture the essential differences between the two cognitive structures from an anthropological point of view. The human brain was created and functions to support life. It has the instinct of self-preservation as an essential element. So, by its structure and by all its functions, the brain belongs to the biological universe. The human brain is the most refined instrument of coordination and leadership we know, whose main purpose is to preserve and protect the organism. Human consciousness or mind, which is a kind of brain software, is correlated with what human being needs to exist in the survival niche, which is an organic one. The brain of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) is planned to carry out certain tasks, usually regarding very precise and immediate goals that are not necessarily a matter related to the world of the living. An essential element of life such as the pleasure principle, the libido in general, as Freud theorized, remains a matter that the inorganic machine cannot easily translate into its language. Pleasure remains only in the perception of the world of living brains, whose support is a biological one. A human brain is directed to everything that is subordinated to life, to what is related to reproduction, pleasure, but also to leave a legacy to its biological descendants. Human consciousness remains connected to the principle of life and what philosophers call Spirit, as a kind of crowning of consciousness, appears precisely in relation to what is alive. We thus consider that a substitution of human Spirit and morality with the products of an AI, even an extremely generative or creative one, remains a difficult matter to achieve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simon (Biometrika 52:425–440, 1955) demonstrated that distributional principles are not necessarily field-specific. Several investigations across various disciplines have referred to similar types of power-law distributions, which inherently incline towards the concentration of the outcome variable. These patterns are often attributed to the so-called "success-breeds-success" (SBS) principle. The first aim of this paper is to decipher the fundamentals of this principle across various disciplines. The second aim is to create a supra-disciplinary model that is able to serve as a default analytical tool for the modelling of SBS dynamics within competitive stochastic systems, for the purpose of which we position homogeneous agents with self-preserving behaviour in competition for scarce resources. It is given that: (1) Agents are not auto-reproductive; hence the self-preservation stimulus forces them to appropriate resources; (2) appropriable resources exist in limited quantities at a given time and in a given space, and agents must compete for these scarce resources; (3) agents implicitly pursue their competitiveness in order to appropriate enough resources for their lifelong reproduction; and (4) the more resources the agent has in the present, the higher the probability of his appropriation in the future. Assuming these conditions, we ran a simulation of 25 million mutual interactions based on the binary dyadic tree for two-agent competition. Despite the perfectly competitive market conditions, the results revealed diverging accumulation trajectories. In contrast to mainstream economic models, the paper provides new perspectives on competition and suggests, in particular, that the distributional dynamics of competitive markets comprise the inequality-driving force in market economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the evolution and significance of the concept of recognition in early modern philosophy, challenging teleological narratives. Topics include the historical origins of recognition, its implications for individual and societal well-being, and its relationship with natural desires such as self-preservation and esteem. The contributors explore various perspectives on how the desire for recognition shapes human behavior, societal structures, and gender roles.

The challenge is to propose a metapsychology which integrates the infinite-- seen as the endless capacity for transformation of psychic reality--while taking in consideration the self-preservation and the sexual death and life drives. De M'Uzan's concept of the vital-identital moves self-preservation to a psychic terrain of identity separate from the order of the sexual. This metapsychology would encompass the different aspects of the unconscious, particularly that of the unconscious ego in its elaborative and generative scope. The interventions of the analyst as ethical subject--that is, the ethical--allowing a negotiation between the vital-identital and the sexual, can reactivate a weakened life instinct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Islam is a complete universal and comprehensive religion, it has made human life a topic of discussion and has given complete guidance on it whether it is related to politics or the formulation and implementation of laws, to economy or to society, to knowledge or to the welfare of human life, to a ruler or to his subjects, there is complete guidance of religion in every aspect. In view of this importance, our forefathers not only acquired the knowledge of the religion of Islam but as the true heirs of it, its publication enriched the people's moralities. Among the responsibilities of the Prophet Muhammad, are the recitation of verses, the teaching of the Book and wisdom and self-preservation which we refer to as character building and moral development. Self-purification means the building of personality, then it has a fundamental importance in the stability of the Ummah because the Muslim Ummah is a special collective, so only special people can be effective in its formation and these special people can be the same those who have purified themselves. It is the responsibility of the Muslim Ummah to maintain the system of self-purification. Islamic scholars, reformers and thinkers took up the task of reforming thoughts, teaching and training, teaching Book and wisdom and Sufis took the responsibility of purifying and training people. There is one such person in the subcontinent who is remembered by the name of Ahmad Yar Khān Naimi, who wrote a commentary on the Qur'an under the name of Tafsir Naimi and wrote it in a mystical style which is unique in terms of its style. In this article, the various incidents of Prophet Muses and Bni Israel have been discussed in the view of the mystical style of Tafseer Näimi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "The 'legitimate illegality' in the Ayotzinapa Case" exposes the contradictions between the law and the Mexican State in the investigations of the case. It highlights "legitimate illegality" as a mechanism of state self-preservation that creates favorable scenarios for state power. The Ayotzinapa Case involves the Federation of Socialist Peasant Students of Mexico and the disappearance of 43 teaching students in 2014, revealing the complexity of the representations of law and the State. [Extracted from the article]

Un Monde, a 2021 feature film, depicts the fictional story of Nora, a child first entering school. In the film viewers are perceptually thrust into the center of Nora's experiences - all its imagery tightly frames her against blurred school backgrounds - a harrowing exercise that compels us to encounter the traumas of her school life as she does. Drawing on Foucault's 'prison form,' this review essay explores how Un Monde innovates in imagining, from the subject-position of a child, how any young person can come to be systematically severed from the relationships that matter most to them, stripped of their dignity, and rendered isolated as an unwitting prisoner of a school's normative values and functions. It suggests that Un Monde can add to our critical vocabularies of public education by offering insights into many of the masked principles - social division, secrecy, shame, dishonesty, distrust, bystanderdism, self-preservation - that can structure relationships there. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trend of self-medication and self-diagnosis among students has become a growing concern in recent years. This study aims to identify the underlying reasons behind this trend, particularly among students of Sikiru Adetona College of Education Science and Technology, Omu-Ajose, Ogun State. A structured questionnaire was distributed to three hundred (300) students from the school of science, and four variables were utilized to concretely situate this study. The four hypotheses were tested using chi-square, and all of them were rejected at the 0.05 level of significance. The results of the study revealed that students engage in self-medical diagnoses and self-treatment to ensure self-preservation, avoid diagnosis expenses, manage their health in situations where drugs are unavailable, and succumb to peer pressure. However, it is recommended that higher institution students should be encouraged to access professional medical diagnoses and treatment to maintain and sustain healthy living. In conclusion, self-medication and self-diagnosis have become prevalent among students due to several reasons, but it is essential to address these issues through effective educational programs and awareness campaigns that emphasize the importance of seeking professional medical advice. This study provides valuable insights for stakeholders in the education and health sectors, as well as policymakers, on the need to prioritize students' health and well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Athena: Filosofijos studijos is the property of Lithuanian Culture Research Institute and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista de Filosofía UIS is the property of Universidad Industrial de Santander and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The text argues that affections such as pride, vanity, envy, pursuit of honor and glory, are structuring for Hobbesian argumentation. It is argued that without such affections the state of nature would not be a state of war, but a state of peace and concord, as, indeed, advocated by Locke. Moreover, without the consideration of such affections, the design of the Leviathan would be fundamentally different, since the natural laws that help to configure it are only comprehensible in their content if it is assumed the self-preservation of proud, vain, envious beings who seek honor and glory. Without such consideration, the state would not only prove ineffective as a security device for humans but would also be unstable. Therefore, presupposing and containing such affective traits is fundamental to the viability and stability of Leviathan. Finally, the text draws a hypothesis about the foundations from which the human being is supposed to have such affective traits, as well how to know them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines discourses around the religious and social practice of taqiyya among members of the Sulaymani Isma'ili community in Saudi Arabia. Isma'ilism, in the context of 1200 years of anti-Shi'a discrimination, cultivated the practice known as taqiyya (Arabic, 'circumscription') as a tool for self-preservation, which was then further rationalized and reinforced by the sect's esoteric theology. Taqiyya consists of concealing religious identity, public avoidance of certain rituals, and, in some instances, claiming to be a member of the unmarked Sunni majority. Sweeping changes in Saudi society in the last several years have meant a growing ambivalence about taqiyya and its continued utility. This is significant since taqiyya for many of our interlocutors in this study is not merely a survival tactic. Instead, it is better understood as an embodied disposition cultivated against the backdrop of household privacy. This disposition intimately links everyday comportment to the esoteric cosmology of Isma'ilism, which is the distinctive and iconic feature of the faith. Our interlocutors' narratives demonstrated how the invocation of different spatial and temporal frameworks provides a basic heuristic by which to interpret these individuals' accounts of taqiyya. For some of these individuals, taqiyya is an essential and timeless practice, while for others, the meaning has been reshaped by the recent socio-political reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fragmentary nature of the aesthetic in Artaud lies in its intensity and trauma. As found in his invented language, recorded utterances, drawings of portraits, hieroglyphic texts, and an irregular cadence of his recorded voice--most of which are exquisitely captured in the Artaud Diptych--this article not only seeks the connection to what is described as forms of "language" and the sublime but also informs the privation communicated in the embodied works of Artaud. As such, Artaud is approached within selected theories of the sublime, presented genealogically and interwoven with praxis, exemplified through the plays of two Greek playwrights, Ioli Andreadi and Aris Asproulis. The performances of Artaud Diptych give us that which embodies an Artaudian engagement with the sublime. The argument herein is that the sublime emanates from various aspects of the writing, imagery, and aural qualities immanent to the Artaudian oeuvre. While Artaud's venture into theater writing may be considered a failed experiment, this article shows how he achieved a singularity in the self-transformative process (and as an avenue of self-preservation), using language as word, imagery, and sound, as affective agents toward the sublime, ultimately operating within a mode of intersubjectivity. In the translation of his oeuvre toward theater and the audience, we discover the ultimate success of his intersubjective work as performative philosophy, as revealed by the Artaud Diptych by Ioli Andreadi and Aris Asproulis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Berliner Debatte Initial is the property of Berliner Debatte Initial e.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Experimental data on dissociation of propane hydrate samples obtained from bulk samples of ice and frozen aqueous polyvinylpyrrolidone solutions are presented. It was observed that propane hydrate exhibits self-preservation effect (with very low dissociation rate) when subjected to a sudden pressure drop in the presence of polyvinylpyrrolidone. This phenomenon occurs at temperatures below 271 K. The results of the experiments made it possible to establish the range of polyvinylpyrrolidone concentration in frozen aqueous solutions and to estimate the thickness of the ice crust formed on the gas hydrate surface during dissociation, at which the self-preservation effect of propane hydrate is realized. It has been established experimentally that the shielding effect of the ice crust of preserved propane hydrate is retained up to 272 K and disappears completely near 273 K. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-care is receiving increased emphasis in the NASW Code of Ethics, and while social work programs may teach about self-care, it has yet to be embedded in the curriculum. This paper examines the idea of self-care being taught using an embodied framework and integrated throughout social work education programs. Research examining social work educators' thoughts about self-care within the curriculum and how they educate students about self-care practices is explored and analyzed within the context of the framework, suggesting there is a foundation to build upon but work that still needs to be done to address some misconceptions before embodied self-care is fully recognized and embedded in social work education. To build upon that foundation, the authors introduce an embodied self-care framework and suggest ways for self-care to be infused throughout the curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to natural processes of movements of opposites that interact with one another in equal forces, the universe is naturally considered an arena of conflicts. As the law of the universe continues to maintain everything in motion, each matter in the ecosystem strives to protect itself in given existential struggles within necessary conflicts. Therefore, the fundamental law of nature is the protection of life (self-preservation) which is often realized through self-defence. It then explains why humans engage themselves in conflicts; not necessarily to bring peace but to survive and maintain themselves in existence. Hence, war is motivated by the innate drive for self-defence and maintenance of self in existence guided by a natural instinct for survival. From conception to death, humans continue to struggle for survival and that entails overcoming conflicts and adversities of life. Thus, war can be considered as having a genetic foundation. This is evidenced in the works of evolutionary theorists. The Darwinian ethological theory tenaciously holds that humans, just like other organisms, struggle to survive, but this is influenced by natural selection which favours the stronger species against the weaker ones. While the stronger ones pass on their inheritable genes to the next generation for maintenance of their species in existence, the weaker ones die off. Hence, the survival of the fittest. This position was very much supported by the Malthusian theory of over-population alert against the limited human resources which demonstrates the constant fight for food in order to survive. The Nietzschean Superman, Marxian class struggle, Heraclitan notion of change, and so on, all cling to the idea that the universe is a violent arena. Consequently, the protection of life has an important moral value. By implication, self-defence is right and justified even if it involves war. Therefore, it is ethical to push through; to defeat the adversary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I will try to show how the chimera, as I understand it, is the result of an unsettling encounter between the traumatic traces of the two protagonists, culminating in a process of reverie, a process, indeed, of hallucinatory emergence, in which a creature emerges from the emotional embers of their traumatic clay. Although I take up Michel de M’Uzan’s notion of depersonalization, I would like to show how my understanding of a chimera filled with sensory qualities is different from his. Back in 2016, I spoke of the unconscious and clandestine agreement of the traumatic traces of both protagonists, from which I think it emerges. This conception seemed to me to reposition the question of the subjective and intersubjective effect of the two protagonists in the session, reaching into their deepest interior, since this »mythical creature«, to use de M’Uzan’s words, emerges from in between them during the analyst’s reverie, expanding into depersonalization. Not only does it arise from the dispositif that contains the emotional truth of the patient and of the analyst, but it also completes the attainment of O, that ultimate reality by which the analyst abolishes their ego by becoming one exclusively with the emotions of the patient. In the first section I will discuss in detail the metapsychology from which de M’Uzan recasts his conception of the chimera, followed by that of James Grotstein, who insists on the agency of projective identification, and finally I will address de M’Uzan’s challenge to the Kleinian approach through his conception of the »vital-identital«, which delineates a field of self-preservation infused with unheard-of energies. With the help of an example, I will try to show that when this creature emerges from the very deepest intimacy of each couple, it comes from the greatest distance and mixes the species based on what is most affective in the transitional characters of the infantile. I will follow a path that connects the Freudian memory traces of 1896 with Bion’s rejection of memory in the session in favor of O – that ultimate reality achieved through the experience of oneness or »at-one-ment« when the analyst, confronted with the patient’s emotional experience, draws on his or her own corresponding emotional resources. Evidence for this will be provided by a detailed example of a chimera. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]