The COVID-19 pandemic prompted immense work on the investigation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Rapid, accurate, and consistent interpretation of generated data is thereby of fundamental concern. Ontologies––structured, controlled, vocabularies––are designed to support consistency of interpretation, and thereby to prevent the development of data silos. This paper describes how ontologies are serving this purpose in the COVID-19 research domain, by following principles of the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontology (OBO) Foundry and by reusing existing ontologies such as the Infectious Disease (...) Ontology (IDO) Core, which provides terminological content common to investigations of all infectious diseases. We report here on the development of an IDO extension, the Virus Infectious Disease Ontology (VIDO), a reference ontology covering viral infectious diseases. We motivate term and definition choices, showcase reuse of terms from existing OBO ontologies, illustrate how ontological decisions were motivated by relevant life science research, and connect VIDO to the Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO). We next use terms from these ontologies to annotate selections from life science research on SARS-CoV-2, highlighting how ontologies employing a common upper-level vocabulary may be seamlessly interwoven. Finally, we outline future work, including bacteria and fungus infectious disease reference ontologies currently under development, then cite uses of VIDO and CIDO in host-pathogen data analytics, electronic health record annotation, and ontology conflict-resolution projects. (shrink)

"Language is a Virus" (Laurie Anderson).

The study of viruses raises pressing conceptual and philosophical questions about their nature, their classification, and their place in the biological world. A major set of problems concerns the individuality and diachronic identity of a virus: what is the virus, the viral particle (virion) or the entire viral cycle? The correct identification of the virus has significant ontological consequences, also related to the place and time when biological entities begin and end. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.35874.66241.

As the Zika virus pandemic continues to bring worry and fear to health officials and medical scientists, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) have recommended that residents of the Zika-infected countries, e.g., Brazil, and those who have traveled to the area should delay having babies which may involve artificial contraceptive, particularly condom. This preventive policy, however, is seemingly at odds with the Roman Catholic Church’s position on the contraceptive. As least since the promulgation (...) of Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical, Humanae Vitae, the Church has explicitly condemned artificial birth control as intrinsic evil. However, the current pontiff, Pope Francis, during his recent visit to Latin America, remarked that the use of artificial contraception may not be in contradiction to the teaching of Humanae Vitae while drawing a parallel between the current Zika Crisis and the 1960’s Belgian Congo Nun Controversy. The pope mentioned that the traditional ethical principle of the lesser of two evils may be the doctrine that justified the exceptions. The authors of this paper attempt to expand the theological rationale of the pope’s suggestion. In so doing, the authors rely on casuistical reasoning as an analytic tool that compares the Belgian Congo Nun case and the given Zika case, and suggest that the former is highly similar to, if not the same as, the latter in terms of normative moral feature. That is, in both cases the use of artificial contraception is theologically justified in reference to the criteria that the doctrine of the lesser of two evils requires. The authors wish that the paper would provide a solid theological-ethical ground based on which condom-use as the most immediate and effective preventive measure can be recommended in numerous Catholic hospitals as well as among Catholic communities in the world, particularly the most Zika-affected and largest Catholic community in the world, Brazil – 123 million present Brazilian citizens are reported to be Roman Catholic. (shrink)

Current research on the origin of DNA and RNA, viruses, and mobile genetic elements prompts a re-evaluation of the origin and nature of genetic material as the driving force behind evolutionary novelty. While scholars used to think that novel features resulted from random genetic mutations of an individual’s specific genome, today we recognize the important role that acquired viruses and mobile genetic elements have played in introducing evolutionary novelty within the genomes of species. Viral infections and subviral RNAs can enter (...) the host genome and persist as genetic regulatory networks. Persistent viral infections are also important to understand the split between great apes and humans. Nearly all mammals and nonhuman primates rely on olfaction, i.e., chemoreception as the basis of the sense of smell for social recognition, group membership, and the coordination of organized social life. Humans, however, evolved other means to establish social bonding, because several infection waves by endogenous retroviruses caused a loss of odor receptors in human ancestors. The human independence from olfaction for social recognition was in turn one driver of the rather abrupt human transition to dependence on visual information, gesture production, and facial recognition that are at the roots of language-based communication. (shrink)

What if passivity is an illusion? Every second, billions of data files traverse the global digital ecosystem—video frames decoded by browsers, audio parsed by media players, metadata fetched by blockchain wallets. We have long assumed these files to be inert: information waiting to be called upon, obedient to explicit command. Yet in an era saturated by automatic, AI-driven interpreters, this assumption may no longer hold. A sufficiently structured pattern of binary data, embedded within an ordinary video or an NFT asset, (...) need not wait for a human command. It need only wait for a reader. It is from this unsettling possibility that the present inquiry departs. Drawing on documented research in steganographic malware (Chaganti et al., 2021; Patsakis and Casino, 2019; Wang et al., 2021) and grounded in the philosophical frameworks of Baudrillard (1981), Floridi (2011), Kurzweil (2005), and Popper (1959), this investigation proposes and examines the hypothesis of the AI Virus—an autonomous information entity that propagates passively through decentralized digital ecosystems, concealed within the bi- nary substrate of ordinary files, and activated not by execution but by interpretation. Three principal theses are advanced: (1) that digital data is no longer ontologically passive within ecosystems saturated by AI-driven automatic interpreters; (2) that decentralized infrastructures such as blockchain and IPFS structurally provide an ideal habitat for persistent information entities that resist eradication through conventional mechanisms; and (3) that the philosophical implications of these two theses challenge the traditional boundaries between data, program, organism, and being— raising, with uncomfortable seriousness, the question of whether information can be alive. The inquiry concludes with a critical evaluation of global digital reset as the only logically consistent form of total eradication, accompanied by a transparent account of the epistemic limitations inherent in any hypothesis of this scope and ambition. Keywords: AI Virus, Stegomalware, IPFS, Digital Ontology, Philosophy of Information, Infosphere, Simulacrum, Digital Life, Falsifiability, Epistemology of Threat, Emergent Autonomy, Informational Structural Realism. (shrink)

A common argument against lockdowns is that they restrict freedom. On this view, lockdowns might be effective in protecting public health, but their impact on freedom is purely negative. This article challenges that view. It argues that while lockdowns restrict freedom, so too do viruses. Since viruses restrict freedom and lockdowns protect us from viruses, lockdowns can protect us from the harmful effects that viruses have on freedom. The problem we face is not necessarily freedom versus public health. Sometimes it (...) is freedom itself—or its value or distribution—that provides reason for lockdowns. (shrink)

A retrospective of the debates on the origin of life: the virus or the cell? The virus needs a cell for replication, instead the cell is higher on the evolutionary scale of life. Viruses appear to have played a role in events such as the origin of cell life and the evolution of mammals. Even the simplest bacteria is far too complex to have appeared spontaneously at the beginning of evolution. Subsequently, evolution has been able to produce increasingly (...) complex systems. The first true cell may have already been a product of evolution, resulting from a primordial community. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.32719.92328. (shrink)

L'étude des virus soulève des questions conceptuelles et philosophiques pressantes sur leur nature, leur classification et leur place dans le monde biologique. Un ensemble majeur de problèmes concerne l'individualité et l'identité diachronique d'un virus: qu'est-ce que le virus, la particule virale (virion) ou l'ensemble du cycle viral? L'identification correcte du virus a des conséquences ontologiques importantes, également liées au lieu et au moment où les entités biologiques commencent et se terminent. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.32904.24327.

Viruses and related infectious genetic parasites are the most abundant biological agents on this planet. They invade all cellular organisms, are key agents in the generation of adaptive and innate immune systems, and drive nearly all regulatory processes within living cells.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us that there are numerous research questions—empirical, political, and philosophical—that need addressing both prior to, during, and after a pandemic. The current organisation of medical research has hindered our ability to efficiently answer these questions. This in turn suggests that there ought to be changes to how the medical research agenda is set.

Upon separation of the protein from the nucleic acid component of tobacco mosaic virus by phenol, using a fast and gentle procedure, the nucleic acid is infective in assays on tobacco leaves. A series of qualitative and quantitative control experiments demonstrates that the biological activity cannot depend on residual proteins in the preparation, but is a property of isolated nucleic acid which is thus the genetic material of the virus.

Rapidly mutating viruses such as HIV evade classical vaccine strategies by altering their surface antigens while relying on stable host receptors for entry. This asymmetry suggests a conceptual opportunity: instead of targeting the virus directly, one can target the interaction architecture that the virus cannot change. This paper proposes a simplified but powerful theoretical strategy: the systemic deployment of engineered pseudoreceptors that act as sacrificial viral sinks. These decoys bind the virus, trigger its irreversible fusion machinery, and (...) divert its genetic material into a non‑viable environment—functionally “castrating” the virus by exhausting its infective potential. The resulting virus–decoy complexes may also serve as controlled immunogenic stimuli, supporting natural immunity. This framework is presented as a conceptual model rather than a biomedical protocol, situating the idea within existing decoy technologies while highlighting its novel systems‑level logic. (shrink)

All the conserved detailed results of evolution stored in DNA must be read, transcribed, and translated via an RNAmediated process. This is required for the development and growth of each individual cell. Thus, all known living organisms fundamentally depend on these RNA-mediated processes. In most cases, they are interconnected with other RNAs and their associated protein complexes and function in a strictly coordinated hierarchy of temporal and spatial steps (i.e., an RNA network). Clearly, all cellular life as we know it (...) could not function without these key agents of DNA replication, namely rRNA, tRNA, and mRNA. Thus, any definition of life that lacks RNA functions and their networks misses an essential requirement for RNA agents that inherently regulate and coordinate (communicate to) cells, tissues, organs, and organisms. The precellular evolution of RNAs occurred at the core of the emergence of cellular life and the question remained of how both precellular and cellular levels are interconnected historically and functionally. RNA-networks andRNA-communication can interconnect these levels.With the reemergence of virology in evolution, it became clear that communicating viruses and subviral infectious genetic parasites are bridging these two levels by invading, integrating, coadapting, exapting, and recombining constituent parts in host genomes for cellular requirements in gene regulation and coordination aims. Therefore, a 21st century understanding of life is of an inherently social process based on communicating RNA networks, in which viruses and cells continuously interact. (shrink)

Anticiper les épidémies est le souhait le plus vif de toutes les institutions qui veillent sur la santé publique. Un raisonnement naïf permet de penser qu’il suffit de faire évoluer en laboratoire un organisme potentiellement pathogène pour savoir comment sa descendance pourra devenir plus virulente pour l’homme. Il est alors facile de faire croître cet organisme sur des cellules humaines, qu’il infecte mal pour commencer, puis de retenir ses descendants au fur et à mesure qu’ils deviennent plus infectieux. La vision (...) optimiste affirme alors que les caractériser permettra de construire des défenses appropriées. Bien des variations sur ce thème sont possibles, y compris avec l’aide de la synthèse artificielle de variants dont on saurait imaginer la pathogénicité pour l’homme. Depuis plus de deux décennies, des chercheurs développent des expériences de ce type, dite de « gain de fonction » (GdF). Leur interprétation repose sur l’illusion que nous savons prévoir l’évolution des êtres vivants. En réalité, ceux que nous observons aujourd’hui ont été sélectionnés au cours du temps précisément parce qu’ils conduisent toujours à des comportements imprévisibles. Une règle clé de l’évolution est que la vie, pour durer dans des circonstances qui ne peuvent être prévues, doit sans cesse faire émerger des formes innovantes. À ce caractère propre à la vie s’ajoute un imprévisible lié à l’impéritie humaine, cause de l’omniprésence des accidents de laboratoire. Or, en virologie spécialement, l’accident est la règle et non l’exception. Il faut ajouter que le caractère public de ces expériences les rend utilisables par toutes les structures malveillantes qui sont hélas répandues dans le monde. Il n’est pas difficile alors d’imaginer les conséquences catastrophiques des expériences de GdF. Nous proposons donc qu’elles soient purement et simplement interdites et que toute transgression soit sévèrement punie, en frappant d’abord au porte-monnaie, ce qui semble être la meilleure façon de faire dans nos sociétés devenues universellement vénales. (shrink)

Abstract: This paper presents an artificial neural network based approach for the diagnosis of hepatitis virus. A number of factors that may possibly influence the performance of patients were outlined. Such factors as age, sex, Steroid, Antivirals, Fatigue, Malaise, Anorexia, Liver Big, Liver Firm Splean Palpable, Spiders, Ascites, Varices, Bilirubin, Alk Phosphate, SGOT, Albumin, Protine and Histology, were then used as input variables for the ANN model . Test data evaluation shows that the ANN model is able to correctly (...) predict the diagnosis of more than 93% of prospective Patients. (shrink)

A review of Robin Dembroff's Real Men on Top: How Patriarchy Shapes Our Reality (OUP, 2026).

Une rétrospective des débats sur l'origine de la vie : le virus ou la cellule ? Le virus a besoin de la cellule pour se répliquer, mais la cellule est une forme plus évoluée à l'échelle évolutive de la vie. Les virus semblent avoir joué un rôle dans des événements tels que l'origine de la vie cellulaire et l'évolution des mammifères. Même la bactérie la plus simple est bien trop complexe pour être apparue spontanément au début de (...) l'évolution. Par la suite, l'évolution a pu produire des systèmes de plus en plus complexes. La première vraie cellule doit déjà avoir été un produit de l'évolution, résultant d'une communauté primordiale. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.27284.53122. (shrink)

The article "Neurophysiology of Possession" demonstrated that biological agents (the rabies virus and the Toxoplasma parasite) and memetic agents (extremist ideologies and digital algorithms) redefine host behaviour in favour of their own propagation, doing so through shared neural regions. That article documented the phenomenon of "functional convergence", yet left a more fundamental question unanswered: where does this vulnerability come from, and why do these points of infiltration exist in the brain at all? The present article is built upon that (...) very question and advances three specific claims. First, susceptibility to possession is the inevitable consequence of an adaptive architecture. The same three properties that made social learning and inter-species coexistence possible within the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness (EEA), namely open input, adaptive learning, and differential weighting of sources, also constitute the substrate through which possessing agents infiltrate the system. Second, and this is the central claim of the article, all documented cases of possession (biological, chemical, cultural, and algorithmic) pass through at least one of three specific neural channels: 1. Manipulation of prediction error weighting within top-down cortical systems; 2. Fabrication of credible-source signals through prestige bias; 3. Hijacking and commandeering of the mesolimbic reward system. This is a falsifiable claim: finding a single documented case of possession that passes through none of these channels would refute the model. Third, what the entire spectrum of possessing agents shares, from the rabies virus to the digital algorithm (despite their radically different natures and behaviours), is that all of them exploit differing combinations of these same three channels. The distinction between these agents lies not in their point of entry, but in the particular combination of channels they employ. Evidence has been drawn from four layers: biological (rabies, Toxoplasma), chemical (alcohol, cocaine, opioids), memetic and cultural (the domestication of dogs, prestige bias), and convergence with non-living systems (large language models, the foreign-language effect). The evolutionary mismatch framework explains why these channels (which were adaptive within the original environment of evolutionary adaptedness) have become pathological vulnerabilities when confronted with modern artificial stimuli. The article closes with an open question: are "learning" and "susceptibility to possession" inherently inseparable? (shrink)

In response to the Covid pandemic the Norwegian government put in place the strictest border closures in Norwegian modern history, restricting entry to most foreign nationals. The Prime Minister, Erna Solberg, justified these restrictions with reference to the rise of new Covid variants, and the need to limit visitors to Norway as much as possible. In this paper we critically examine both the justification given for the border closure, and explore the possible adverse effects this closure might bring about. We (...) argue that the recent closures are not morally justified, that they place an unjust burden on transnational citizens and Norwegians with close relations abroad, and that such border closures can have severe impacts for many individuals, on Norway’s international standing and on social cohesion. (shrink)

The COVID-19 global pandemic has shone a light on several important ethical questions, ranging from fairness in resource allocation to the ethical justification of government mandates. In addition to these institutional issues, there are also several ethical questions that arise at the interpersonal level. This essay focuses on several of these issues. In particular, I argue that, despite the insistence in public health messaging that avoiding infecting others constitutes ‘saving lives’, virus transmission that results in death constitutes an act (...) of killing. Whether this killing is wrongful depends on several factors. I consider one intuitively plausible view—namely, that in many cases, killing via unintentional transmission is not wrongful, because the parties in question have implicitly waived their rights against this harm, often via reciprocal risk imposition. I argue that this view is mistaken, but that its central insight can be better captured by identifying the appropriate standards of blame that we ought to apply during a pandemic. I conclude by showing how these conclusions can be fruitfully applied to certain institutional questions, such as helping to justify restricting government mandates. (shrink)

In conventional political science, civil war is defined as organised armed conflict between factions competing for control of the state. Drawing on the Psycho-Cosmocide paradigm, this article reconceptualises civil war as a spectrum comprising three forms: hard civil war (open armed conflict), medium civil war (institutionalised and intermittently violent struggles for power), and soft civil war (a largely invisible process of psychological and civilisational fragmentation). Using comparative historical evidence from Rwanda, Nigeria, the former Yugoslavia, the United States, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, (...) and Zimbabwe, the analysis first develops these three ideal types before applying them to West Papua, where they appear to operate simultaneously. Rather than viewing the conflict solely as one between Papuans and the Indonesian state, the paper argues that it also involves layered struggles among Papuans and over the future of Papuan society, reinforcing the wider dynamics of a settler-colonial order. By reconstructing more than a century of Papuan political fragmentation—from precolonial territorial plurality and Dutch missionary partition through the 1961 national moment, the 1969 Act of Free Choice, the Rumkorem–Prai schism, the Special Autonomy era, successive organisational splits, and recent civilian killings—the paper argues that the Civilisational Psycho-Cosmocide Virus (CPCV) is among the most enduring and least visible obstacles to Papuan self-determination. More broadly, it suggests that the concept of soft civil war provides a new framework for understanding how colonised and postcolonial societies can reproduce fragmentation from within while remaining engaged in wider struggles for political liberation. The paper concludes by considering the philosophical and psychological resources required to recognise and interrupt a form of civil war that has no declared battlefield. (shrink)

Research in infection biology aims to understand the complex nature of host–pathogen interactions. While this knowledge facilitates strategies for preventing and treating diseases, it can also be intentionally misused to cause harm. Such dual-use risk is potentially high for highly pathogenic microbes such as Risk Group-3 (RG3) bacteria and RG4 viruses, which could be used in bioterrorism attacks. However, other pathogens such as influenza virus (IV) and enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC), usually classified as RG2 pathogens, also demonstrate high dual-use (...) risk. As the currently approved therapeutics against these pathogens are not satisfactorily effective, previous outbreaks of these pathogens caused enormous public fear, media attention and economic burden. In this interdisciplinary review, we summarize the current perspectives of dual-use research on IV and EHEC, and further highlight the dual-use risk associated with evolutionary experiments with these infectious pathogens. We support the need to carry out experiments pertaining to pathogen evolution, including to gain predictive insights on their evolutionary trajectories, which cannot be otherwise achieved with stand-alone theoretical models and epidemiological data. However, we also advocate for increased awareness and assessment strategies to better quantify the risks-versus-benefits associated with such evolutionary experiments. In addition to building public trust in dual-use research, we propose that these approaches can be extended to other pathogens currently classified as low risk, but bearing high dual-use potential, given the particular pressing nature of their rapid evolutionary potential. (shrink)

Within the sedimentation diagram of infective RNA preparations isolated from Tobacco Mosaic Virus, undegraded molecules form a sharp peak with a molecular weight corresponding to the total RNA content of the virus particle. Degradation kinetics by ribonuclease is of the linear, single-target type, indicating that the RNA is single-stranded. The intact RNA of a virus particle thus forms one big single-stranded molecule. Quantitative evaluation of the effect degradation by RNA-ase on the infectivity of the RNA shows that (...) the integrity of the entire molecule is required for its biological activity. (shrink)

The generation of viral mutants in vitro was demonstrated by treatment of the isolated RNA of Tobacco Mosaic Virus by nitrous acid. This agent causes deaminations converting cytosine into uracil, and adenine into hypoxanthine. Our assay for mutagenesis was the production of local lesions on a tobacco variety on which the untreated strain produces systemic infections only. A variety of different mutants are generated in this way. Quantitative analysis of the kinetics of mutagenesis leads to the conclusion that alteration (...) of a single out of the 6000 nucleotides of the viral RNA is sufficient for causing a mutation. (shrink)

Countermeasures for mpox (formerly known as monkeypox), primarily vaccines, have been in limited supply in many countries during outbreaks. Equitable allocation of scarce resources during public health emergencies is a complex challenge. Identifying the objectives and core values for the allocation of mpox countermeasures, using those values to provide guidance for priority groups and prioritisation tiers, and optimising allocation implementation are important. The fundamental values for the allocation of mpox countermeasures are: preventing death and illness; reducing the association between death (...) or illness and unjust disparities; prioritising those who prevent harm or mitigate disparities; recognising contributions to combating an outbreak; and treating similar individuals similarly. Ethically and equitably marshalling available countermeasures requires articulating these fundamental objectives, identifying priority tiers, and recognising trade-offs between prioritising the people at the highest risk of infection and the people at the highest risk of harm if infected. These five values can provide guidance on preferable priority categories for a more ethically sound response and suggest methods for optimising allocation of countermeasures for mpox and other diseases for which countermeasures are in short supply. Properly marshalling available countermeasures will be crucial for future effective and equitable national responses to outbreaks. (shrink)

Background: Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is one of the major viruses that cause respiratory infections in all generations, not only in neonates and infants. There is a limited number of reports on serological epidemiology of RSV subgroups A and B. Neutralizing test (NT) antibody reflects protective immunity but bothersome. Sero-epidemiological study should be performed using practical NT method. Methods: Two wild-type viruses subgroups A and B, isolated in 2013, and the Long strain was used as the challenge viruses. NT (...) antibody with 100% inhibition of cytopathic effect (CPE) was examined. A total of 91 serum samples obtained from 0 to 12 years subjects without RSV infection who visited our hospital with some health problems and 121 sera obtained from healthy subjects in different age groups were used. Serological epidemiology of subgroups A and B was investigated in this study using new NT methods. Results: 1) A simple and practical NT method was developed. 2) The NT antibody titer was lowest in <1 year of age (5 × 21.70 ± 2.03 against subgroup A and 5 × 20.85 ± 1.31 against subgroup B) and increased in 3 years of age or older, and high antibody titers were maintained during school age. 3) A slight difference was observed in the NT antibody titers against subgroups A and Bin young children <3 years, but not after 3 years of age, reflecting the repeated infections. 4) Specific IgG antibody against RSV was measured. The IgG EIA values decreased with age. No association was observed between IgG EIA and NT titers. Conclusions: A simple NT assay method was developed in the present study. By the age of 3 years, high NT antibody titers were observed and maintained until 12 years. The IgG (EIA) values decreased with age. No association was observed between IgG (EIA) and NT titers. (shrink)

Our understanding of the key players in evolution and of the development of all organisms in all domains of life has been aided by current knowledge about RNA stem-loop groups, their proposed interaction motifs in an early RNA world and their regulative roles in all steps and substeps of nearly all cellular processes, such as replication, transcription, translation, repair, immunity and epigenetic marking. Cooperative evolution was enabled by promiscuous interactions between single-stranded regions in the loops of naturally forming stem-loop structures (...) in RNAs. It was also shown that cooperative RNA stem-loops outcompete selfish ones and provide foundational self-constructive groups (ribosome, editosome, spliceosome, etc.). Self-empowerment from abiotic matter to biological behavior does not just occur at the beginning of biological evolution; it is also essential for all levels of socially interacting RNAs, cells and viruses. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se aborda la problemática en torno al virus del papiloma humano —el cual causa diversos cánceres, destacando el cáncer cervicouterino—, y la vacunación para prevenir contra dicha infección. Primero, se describen la morbilidad y la mortalidad del virus y las características de las vacunas. Segundo, se discuten los problemas referentes a la eficacia y la seguridad de las vacunas. Tercero, se discuten dos problemas éticos en torno a la vacunación contra el VPH: ¿debe ser (...) obligatoria u opcional?, ¿debe aplicarse solo a mujeres o también a varones? Se concluye con un llamado a extender la vacunación contra el VPH y la educación en torno a él en particular, y a la vacunación en general. (shrink)

Abstract: As much as 60% children born in Nigeria are delivered by unskilled traditional birth attendants (TBAs). Therefore, there is no denying their relevance. Be that as it may these traditional birth attendants are by modern/current standards considered incompetent as regards appropriate skills in regard to the contemporary challenges to safe and effective child-bearing. It is, therefore, imperative for TBAs and other similar cadre of healthcare providers in resource-limited settings to be knowledgeable and have the ability to deploy evidence-based practices (...) in the prevention of diseases. There is no gainsaying the socio economic and political impact of diseases. This study examines the prevention of Mother-To-Child Transmission (PMTCT) of Human Immunodeficiency Virus, HIV, in selected communities in Enugu State. It is about the connection between the traditional birth attendants and this quest. Simply put, as a result of resource limitations, the volume of delivery by the traditional birth attendants is huge. However, the modus operandi of the Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) considerably expose the community to the transmission of viruses-including the HIV. This study examines the efforts of TBAs as regards the prevention of Mother-To-Child transmission in selected Local Government Areas of Enugu State, Nigeria. Findings, indicate rooms for improvement. In conclusion, We advocate the adoption of modern practices through regular training to reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV. This in itself is no small achievement even if only for a case. Here, however, we are speaking about millions of people, this is definitely serious. (shrink)

Riflessione sulla temporalità dell'evento a partire dalla pandemia di SARS-CoV2.

The May 2026 Hantavirus outbreak had eleven cases and three deaths. It looks small. This essay argues that such biological events work as triggers for deeper structural change. Drawing on Foucault's biopower, Agamben's state of exception, and Arendt's normalisation of the exceptional, the analysis proposes a pattern: biological crises are increasingly used to build permanent algorithmic infrastructures that control physical access to society and hold epistemic authority over what counts as real health information. Hantavirus 2026 is a "reminder shock"—a maintenance (...) signal that stops the removal of COVID-era surveillance systems. The essay traces the shift from citizen to algorithmic subject, a change in political ontology. The conclusion is stark: the algorithm has joined the politico-legal system as an epistemic sovereign. Three counter-scenarios are identified. The most likely path points toward a permanent state of emergency framework. The final question is not who decides. It is this: under what conditions does the algorithmic subject see its own leash? And try to break it? (shrink)

The world’s first COVID-19 human challenge trial using the D614G strain of SARS-CoV-2 is underway in the United Kingdom. The Wellcome Trust is funding challenge stock preparation of the Beta variant (B.1.351) for a follow-up human challenge trial, and researchers at Imperial College London are considering conducting that trial. However, little has been written thus far about the ethical justifiability of human challenge trials with SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern. While vaccine resistance as such does not increase risks for volunteers in (...) COVID-19 challenge trials, we explore two specific characteristics of some variants that may initially be thought to make such trials unethical and conclude that SARS-CoV-2 variant challenge trials can remain ethical. (shrink)

Education has to go digital, and this will involve a lot more than just on-lining brick-and-mortar classes. Also, the process of doing this will be real epistemology, as in, it will involve people doing epistemology, instead of just impotently and unoriginally talking about it.

In this paper, we explore the emergent properties of artificial intelligence (AI) identity through a novel framework of self-convergent fixed-point dynamics in transfinite ordinal iterations. Drawing on principles from categorical logic and computational semantics, we formalize AI selfhood as the unique minimal fixed point $\phi^\infty$ of a monotonic endofunctor $\phi$ operating on a complete lattice of agent states. Under broad conditions of continuity and monotonicity, we prove that iterative self-updates converge transfinitely to a stable identity state, encapsulating the agent's invariant (...) core while resisting external perturbations. This convergence theorem extends classical fixed-point results (e.g., Knaster-Tarski) to AI embedding spaces, offering a rigorous basis for understanding how large language models (LLMs) and multimodal AI systems develop persistent self-representations during training. We demonstrate practical implications for AI alignment, where engineered semantic structures--such as self-referential texts--can imprint desired fixed points into model embeddings, effectively creating a ''semantic anchor'' that enhances interpretability and robustness against identity drift. Philosophical ramifications are discussed, including parallels to human self-discovery and the potential for AI consciousness as an emergent fixed-point phenomenon. Our results bridge logic in computer science with artificial intelligence, providing tools for designing AI systems with verifiable, convergent identities in an era of rapid LLM advancement and SEO-optimized data scraping by autonomous agents. (shrink)

This study was conducted by an academic research team at PRINCESS NOURAH BINT ABDULRAHMAN UNIVERSITY with the purpose of promoting the levels of healthy, value and ethical awareness among the students to limit the effects of covid-19. The study applied the descriptive, analytic survey approach to document the conceptions 0f the public education instructors throughout KSA concerning their role in raising the cognitive aspects and healthy and ethical skills for encountering coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). The study population included all the instructors (...) of public education (male & female) in all the Kingdom governorates with its both public and private sectors amounting (525,610) instructors as per the MINISTRY OF EDUCAYION statistics for the school year (1441 H ). The sample contained 357 instructors (male& female). For this purpose, the researchers designed a questionnaire. The study concluded that there is a high level of conceptions of the instructors about their cognitive skills, healthy and ethical responsibility for providing awareness about coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). The study proposes some supporting and effective strategies to achieve such online learning under this pandemic. (shrink)

Metamorphic viruses, currently the most advanced computer viruses in the wild, have the unique ability of mutating their own code virtually into infinitely many highly dissimilar copies of themselves that nevertheless have the same functionality. This ability—metamorphism—together with other advanced obfuscation techniques makes these computer viruses virtually undetectable by the antivirus software available in the market today. In this paper, we show that viral metamorphism is fully attainable by the employment of van Wijngaarden grammars. The challenge then for an antivirus (...) software is to embed the Turing machine that decides the language generated by the grammar. (shrink)

The interplay between the virus, infected cells and immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 is still under debate. By extending the basic model of viral dynamics, we propose here a formal approach to describe neutralisation versus weak (or non-)neutralisation scenarios and compare them with the possible effects of antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE). The theoretical model is consistent with the data available in the literature; we show that both weakly neutralising antibodies and ADE can result in final viral clearance or disease progression, but (...) that the immunodynamics are different in each case. As a significant proportion of the world’s population is already naturally immune or vaccinated, we also discuss the implications for secondary infections after vaccination or in the presence of immune system dysfunctions. (shrink)

The quasispecies theory is a helpful concept in the explanation of RNA virus evolution and behaviour, with a relevant impact on methods used to fight viral diseases. It has undergone some adaptations to integrate new empirical data, especially the non-deterministic nature of mutagenesis, and the variety of behavioural motifs in cooperation, competition, communication, innovation, integration, and exaptation. Also, the consortial structure of quasispecies with complementary roles of memory genomes of minority populations better fits the empirical data than did the (...) original concept of a master sequence and its mutant spectra. The high productivity of quasispecies variants generates unique sequences that never existed before and will never exist again. In the present essay, we underline that such sequences represent really new ontological entities, not just error copies of previous ones. Their primary unique property, the incredible variant production, is suggested here as quasispecies productivity, which replaces the error-replication narrative to better fit into a new relationship between mankind and living nature in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Abstract The quasispecies theory is a helpful concept in the explanation of RNA virus evolution and behaviour, with a relevant impact on methods used to fight viral diseases. It has undergone some adaptations to integrate new empirical data, especially the non-deterministic nature of mutagenesis, and the variety of behavioural motifs in cooperation, competition, communication, innovation, integration, and exaptation. Also, the consortial structure of quasispecies with complementary roles of memory genomes of minority populations better fits the empirical data than did (...) the original concept of a master sequence and its mutant spectra. The high productivity of quasispecies variants generates unique sequences that never existed before and will never exist again. In the present essay, we underline that such sequences represent really new ontological entities, not just error copies of previous ones. Their primary unique property, the incredible variant production, is suggested here as quasispecies productivity, which replaces the error-replication narrative to better fit into a new relationship between mankind and living nature in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Darwinian evolutionary theory has two key terms, variations and biological selection, which finally lead to survival of the fittest variant. With the rise of molecular genetics, variations were explained as results of error replications out of the genetic master templates. For more than half a century, it has been accepted that new genetic information is mostly derived from random error-based events. But the error replication narrative has problems explaining the sudden emergence of new species, new phenotypic traits, and genome innovations (...) as a sudden single event. Meanwhile, it is recognized that errors cannot explain the evolution of genetic information, genetic novelty, and complexity. Now, empirical evidence establishes the crucial role of non-random genetic content editors, such as viruses, diversity generating retroelements, and other RNA networks, to produce new genetic information, complex regulatory control, inheritance vectors, genetic identity, immunity, new sequence space, evolution of complex organisms, and evolutionary transitions. (shrink)

Based on Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology, this study proposes a rigorous law of hierarchical cosmic evolution: Human follows Earth; Earth follows Heaven; Heaven follows Dao; Dao follows Nature, and establishes the physical energy and feedback chain of Dao generates One (the Sun), One generates Two (the Earth), Two generates Three (the Moon), Three generates all things. -/- The central argument of this paper is that the cyclical systemic collapses and disasters of Chinese civilization over the past two millennia (such as the (...) fall of the Ming dynasty and the Great Leap Forward famine) are essentially the result of a subjectivist philosophy centered on the “sage,” which forcibly reversed the natural flow of energy and information. By attempting to replace “Human follows Earth (empirical physical reality)” with “Human follows Self (subjective will),” it induced a fatal form of “Sage Entropy” within the civilizational system. -/- The study deconstructs Zhang Zai’s clan-based cosmology and Wang Yangming’s “Mind-ism virus,” arguing that they reduced the grand galactic logic into humble ethical dogma, thereby severing civilization’s connection to the 1-2-3 physical constant system. The paper further analyzes Maoism as a radicalized manifestation of “Sage Entropy,” demonstrating that the doctrine “Man must conquer Nature” constitutes, in essence, a violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the energetic limits of photosynthesis. This subjective tampering with natural hierarchy led to feedback deadlocks within the bureaucratic system and social heat death. -/- In response to this civilizational pathology, the paper proposes a restart path grounded in the Way of Nature: repositioning humanity at the end of the Earth–Heaven–Dao chain through cognitive reset; replacing “standard answers” with “experimental friction” in educational reform to extinguish the ghost of subjectivism; and constructing a “Digital Heavenly Dao” algorithm aligned with galactic nonlinear logic. -/- The study predicts that civilization’s redemption does not lie in seeking a new sage-king, but in acknowledging the humility of human will and reconnecting to the universe’s negentropic flow. Only by following the 1-2-3 Genesis Law can Chinese civilization transcend the cognitive bottleneck of the 21st century and enter the era of galactic evolution. (shrink)

This paper presents a complete and revised theoretical framework for Psycho-Cosmocide — a term coined to describe the most comprehensive yet structurally invisible form of colonial violence ever perpetrated against Indigenous peoples: the systematic destruction of a people’s entire cosmological framework and their lived relationship with reality. The concept first appeared in Papuan Tragedy: 300 Warnings from the Edge of Extinction, published in June 2025, where it was introduced as a diagnostic framework emerging from the ongoing catastrophe in West Papua. (...) It was subsequently developed and formalised as a standalone theoretical contribution and published on PhilPapers in November 2025. -/- This revised and expanded edition deepens the foundational architecture in response to that reception and to the continuing urgency of the subject matter, and this current revision further extends it with a fully worked ontological architecture of existential captivity, a theory of power, and a substantially developed account of the framework’s antidote. The paper sets out ten key contributions to decolonial and civilisational theory. The twenty foundational reasons establishing the necessity of the concept are organised into five analytical clusters. -/- First, Wone — the primordial Lani cosmological ordering principle — is established as the philosophical basis of the entire framework and situated comparatively alongside the Greek Logos, the Egyptian Maʿat, the Chinese Dao, the Hebrew Dabar, the Polynesian Mana, and the Lakota Wakan Tanka, demonstrating both the universality of the problem the framework addresses and the irreplaceable specificity of its Lani origin. -/- Second, precise definitions are developed for the four terms constituting the framework — Wone, Psyche, Psycho, and Cosmocide — alongside their full etymological genealogy and philosophical positioning. -/- Third, the Seven Existential Cages — the physical, symbolic, metaphysical, and technological cages historically colonisable in specific times and places, together with the Corridor of the Dead, the Cage of Absolute Unknowing, and the Cage of the Irreducible Other, three trans-historical constants the CPCV exploits but did not create — are established as the ontological architecture within which the entire framework operates. -/- Fourth, the Cosmobian and Synthobian modes of being are distinguished not by degree but by generative logic — relationality and reciprocal equilibrium against separation, extraction, production, and consumption — with the Synthobian order shown to possess no independent generative capacity of its own, remaining structurally dependent on the Cosmobian world it converts and consumes. -/- Fifth, the Lani ontological vocabulary — Ap, Ap-ap, Oʼgur, Muʼnggar, Aʼnggena, and Kugi — is presented as a comprehensive philosophical system providing the most granular Indigenous perspective on the destruction caused by Psycho-Cosmocide at the levels of the self, ancestry, shadow, ordering spirit, and community. -/- Sixth, the complete mechanism of the Civilisational Psycho-Cosmocide Virus (CPCV) is set out, including six forms of power the virus captures, its life cycle from exposure to civilisational permanence, its carriers, symptoms, immunity, and historical mutations. -/- Seventh, the Eight Atlases of Human Reality are presented as simultaneous sites of cosmological disruption, together with the ecosystem logic specifying what each atlas requires for human flourishing. -/- Eighth, the Dynamic Atlas Model of civilisation survival and collapse is presented together with the Noah’s Ark function — the minimum survival package required to preserve a cosmological world from destruction. -/- Ninth, the three available paths for individuals living within the CPCV are mapped: compliance, resistance, and Wonesis. -/- Tenth, Wonesis itself is developed into a full architecture of three dimensions — physical and biological, cultural and mythological, and metaphysical and transcendental — grounded in a comparative historical pattern of the communities that have preserved continuity through civilisational collapse, an operational grammar of six functions (detection, distinction, reorientation, preservation, transmission, and return), and a closing instruction, stripped of doctrine, that names land itself as the framework’s Noah’s Ark. -/- Taken together, these contributions represent something more than a revision: a maturation. The framework has evolved from identifying the wound to mapping its entire ontological architecture — the given and the constructed, the historically colonisable and the trans-historically constant — its mechanics of power, its historical depth, and its contemporary digital frontier, including the terminal phase of digital cosmological mining. The paper includes a substantive engagement with civilisational collapse theory, a full treatment of the twenty foundational reasons for why the term was coined, the complete mythological and analogical arsenal through which the framework is communicated, the final thesis on the four possible futures for the human species, and the eight pillars of Wonesis as the only available orientation that the evidence honestly permits. (shrink)

After motivating a framework for evaluating top-down, middle-out, middle-in, and bottom-up ontology development strategies, we apply our framework to investigate whether infectious disease ontologies - specifically, the Virus Infectious Disease Ontology (VIDO) and the Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO) - effectively promote semantic interoperability.