The rapid rise of international collaborative science has enabled access to genomic data. In this article, it is argued that to move beyond mapping genomic variation to understanding its role in complex disease aetiology and treatment will require extending data sharing for the purposes of clinical research translation and implementation.

It may be most convenient to respond to Dr Andreae’s points in turn. Unless the claim that a child should determine its own genetic characteristics before it is conceived or born is intended to be flippant, it is logically incoherent. Conception is a decision that only a prospective parent can make. The editorial argument is that denial of choice of sex contributes to preventable maternal mortality and morbidity, particularly in developing countries. ….

1. As always, before beginning a discussion it is necessary to settle on the concepts with which one will operate. In the present instance we will be concerned not only with the concept of determinism, but with others associated with or correlative to it: law, causality, necessity, etc. Obviously, within the limits of a brief paper we can deal only with the most basic features.

v. 1. Philosophie. Rechtsphilosophie -- v. 2-4. Volkenrecht -- v. 5-6. Rechtsgeschiedenis. Burgerlijk recht. Procesrecht. Octrooirecht. Studie.

Profound revolutionary changes occur periodically in the historical development of science. They take place when the system of scientific views previously in existence breaks down, and a new system adequate to the higher level of scientific knowledge takes shape. The discoveries of Copernicus, Lavoisier, Darwin, and many others have opened such periods of change in natural science. In modern physics, the discoveries of radium and the electron, the emergence of the theory of relativity and of quantum mechanics, have brought about (...) a revolution which has not yet run its course. (shrink)

Alarm over the prospect that prenatal diagnostic techniques, which permit identification of fetal sex and facilitate abortion of healthy but unwanted female fetuses has led some to urge their outright prohibition. This article argues against that response. Prenatal diagnosis permits timely action to preserve and enhance the life and health of fetuses otherwise endangered, and, by offering assurance of fetal normality, may often encourage continuation of pregnancies otherwise vulnerable to termination. Further, conditions in some societies may sometimes render excusable the (...) inclination to abort certain healthy female fetuses. In places where abortion for fetal sex alone is recognised as unethical, however, medical licensing authorities already possess the power to discipline, for professional misconduct, physicians who prescribe or perform prenatal diagnosis purely to identify fetal sex, or those who disclose fetal sex when that is unrelated to the fetus's medical condition. (shrink)

Professor Kemp Smith in providing a new edition of Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion , embodying all the author’s additions and corrections, has given expression to the perennial interest and fascination which this work has possessed for many minds during the odd one hundred and fifty years since it was first published by Hume’s nephew. The editor himself has performed a great service by contributing an Introduction and a clear and concise summary of the Dialogues , in both of which (...) he expounds his own view as to how Hume’s discussion is to be interpreted. Hume employs three characters—Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes; and. (shrink)

The article presents an approach to the formation of a decision support system in the management of energy consumption of production technological systems. Such systems allow the company to detect and respond in a timely manner to the appearance of hidden energy losses, to carry out organizational measures aimed at energy saving and to optimize the timing and scope of repair and restoration work. The approach is based on the modeling of stationary sections of energy consumption, presented in the form (...) of precedents, their accumulation and subsequent analysis in the space of influential technological parameters. In addition to the base of precedents, the system includes software modules for assessment and formation of the profile of hidden energy losses, modules of technical condition, forecast and formation of precedents. The analysis of precedents consists in the selection of similar cases of energy consumption, the formation of efficient energy consumption functions and the calculation of energy losses with its help. Hidden energy losses can be calculated in real time for all technological systems of the enterprise. This allows you to build a profile of energy losses of the enterprise. The advantage of this approach in comparison with the known ones is that it allows to adapt to technological systems with different energy sources. The article emphasizes that the method can work with the energy manager with both linear and nonlinear dependence of energy consumption on process parameters. However, the limitations of this approach are noted. Thus, the determination of latent energy losses and technical condition of the equipment requires the participation of qualified specialists of the enterprise, who must be able to analyze the results and propose measures to eliminate energy losses. (shrink)

We know that the Philosophical Notebooks do not constitute a finished work, but are working digests done by Lenin, not for publication but only for himself, and as a basis for further work on questions of dialectics. This circumstance must always be remembered when one turns to the Philosophical Notebooks. Here are recorded and collected Lenin's remarkable thoughts as they developed upon reading the works of Hegel and other philosophers as well as certain natural scientists, and Lenin's exceedingly valuable plans (...) and notions pertaining to further work on theoretical problems of the materialist dialectic. But, at the same time, the Philosophical Notebooks contain numerous passages copied by Lenin as he did the digests of the philosophical works he read. Moreover, it is sometimes difficult to say for what purpose and toward what end Lenin did this copying: was it in order subsequently to adduce these extracts and quotations in support of his own views and postulates; was it for purposes of criticism — to demonstrate that the propositions of Marxist dialectics were incompatible with them; or was it merely as the roughest kind of material for work he would subsequently do? Many of the copied extracts in the Philosophical Notebooks are accompanied by Lenin's critical remarks, negative and positive, in brief analyses and rather extensive commentaries. But some of them remained open questions for Lenin himself. In such an instance he noted for his own information that it would be necessary to return again to the proposition he had copied, because it was something that he did not fully understand: it seemed to him that at the given point Hegel wished to say this or that; but perhaps that is not the case. (shrink)

To help people study Marxist-Leninist philosophy, it is particularly necessary to be careful about the accuracy of philosophical terminology. Vague and ambiguous expressions must be firmly eliminated. Among them, in our view, is the saying, current among us, to the effect that "the world as a whole" is the subject matter of philosophy, Marxist philosophy included. The present article is devoted to criticism of that view.

The study of the problem of religious relations is of particular interest, since upon the annexation to Russia, during the years 1794-1796, and in some places until 1798, the almost complete elimination of the Uniate Church in Right-Bank Ukraine took place. This issue has been covered extensively in pre-revolutionary historiography, including at the local level. Thus, the history of the existence and liquidation of the Uniate Church in Podillya became the leading topic of research of the "Podolsky Diocesan Historical and (...) Statistical Committee". Another printed organ, where the church-historical information about Podolsk parishes, collected by priests, became Podilskie Eparchial Gazettes. The main idea behind the content of these studies was that Podillya was considered as originally Russian possession, and Orthodoxy was the only possible denomination of the land. (shrink)

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 prohibits most forms of discrimination on the basis of genetic information in health insurance and employment. The findings cited as justification for the act, the almost universal political support for it, and much of the scholarly literature about genetic discrimination, all betray a confusion about what is really at issue. They imply that genetic discrimination is wrong mainly because of genetic exceptionalism: because some special feature of genetic information makes discrimination on the basis (...) thereof wrong. I suggest, to the contrary, that the best arguments against genetic discrimination assume that health care is an entitlement . I do this by examining two different exceptionalist arguments for genetic nondiscrimination, showing that they do not furnish good reasons for prohibiting genetic discrimination unless one supposes that health care is an entitlement. (shrink)

Prohibition on sex selection may well be unnecessary and oppressive as well as posing risks to women’s lives The urge to select children’s sex is not new. The Babylonian Talmud, a Jewish text completed towards the end of the fifth century of the Christian era, advises couples on means to favour the birth of either a male or a female child.1 The development of amniocentesis alerted the public in the mid-1970s to the scientific potential for prenatal determination of fetal sex,2 (...) and progressive decriminalisation of abortion afforded choice about continuation of pregnancy. The more recent emergence of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) obviates resort to abortion, and improved techniques of sperm sorting and diagnosis permit creation of zygotes that will ensure the sex of a future child. Growth of biomedical means to select the sex of future children has been accompanied by fear that such means will be employed to favour births of sons, and so perpetuate devaluation of girl children and women’s inferior family and social status. A reaction to this fear has been the demand for legal and medical professional prohibition of sex selection techniques. For instance, the Council of Europe’s Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine3 provides in article 14 that: The use of techniques of medically assisted procreation shall not be allowed for the purpose of choosing a future child’s sex, except where serious hereditary sex-related disease is to be avoided. Legislation has been enacted in a number of countries, and proposed in others, to prohibit sex selection on non-medical grounds, such as the Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act, 1994 in India. In Canada, for instance, government draft legislation introduced in May 2002 proposes to make it a crime for any person, for the purpose of creating a human …. (shrink)

The Acarnanian chrēsmologos Amphilytos spoke the verses to Peisistratos just before the battle of Pallene in 546 b.c. They contain a prediction of imminent victory for Peisistratos and total defeat for the Athenians. The Athenians will be routed and deprived of political self-determination, while the victory will restore to Peisistratos the tyranny from which he was twice forced, ‘rooting’ it once for all. Of course, all of this appears quite evident from the narrative. But as the verses form part of (...) Herodotos' account of Peisistratos' ascent to power they amount to much more, for they constitute penultimate proof of Peisistratos' irresistibility , a recurrent theme in Herodotos' logos, but one which was undoubtedly encouraged by his Athenian sources as a means of explaining how the Athenians were forced to yield the tyranny. Indeed, the theme of irresistibility helps to excuse the Athenians for being overcome; as much of the logos, which is historically quite vague, it is a reaction to fact, not factual itself. (shrink)

Discoveries in natural science may be described concisely as a general procedure for finding the new in nature, in its phenomena, or in their essence.