The aim of the study was to determine the acceptance and perception of Nigerian patients to medical photography. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed among Nigerian patients attending oral and maxillofacial surgery and plastic surgery clinics of 3 tertiary health institutions. Information requested included patients' opinion about consent process, capturing equipment, distribution and accessibility of medical photographs. The use of non-identifiable medical photographs was more acceptable than identifiable to respondents for all purposes (P = 0.003). Most respondents were favourably disposed to (...) photographs being taken for inclusion in the case note, but opposed to identifiable photographs being used for other purposes most especially in medical websites and medical journals. Female respondents preferred non-identifiable medical photographs to identifiable ones (P = 0.001). Most respondents (78%) indicated that their consent be sought for each of the outline needs for medical photography. Half of the respondents indicated that identifiable photographs may have a negative effect on their persons; and the most commonly mentioned effects were social stigmatization, bad publicity and emotional/psychological effects. Most of the respondents preferred the use of hospital-owned camera to personal camera/personal camera-phone for their medical photographs. Most respondents (67.8%) indicated that they would like to be informed about the use of their photographs on every occasion, and 74% indicated that they would like to be informed of the specific journal in which their medical photographs are to be published. In conclusion, non-identifiable rather than identifiable medical photography is acceptable to most patients in the studied Nigerian environment. The use of personal camera/personal camera-phone should be discouraged as its acceptance by respondents is very low. Judicious use of medical photography is therefore advocated to avoid breach of principle of privacy and confidentiality in medical practice. (shrink)

This chapter presents an essay by W. E. B. Du Bois that deals with the issue of race. He raises questions such as: What is the real meaning of race. What has, in the past, been the law of race development? What lessons has the past history of race development to teach the rising Negro people? He describes the American Negro Academy, which aims at once to be the epitome and expression of the intellect of the black-blooded people of America, (...) the exponent of the race ideals of one of the world's great races. He concludes by outlining a proposed creed for the Academy. (shrink)

A supertask is a task that consists in infinitely many component steps, but which in some sense is completed in a finite amount of time. Supertasks were studied by the pre-Socratics and continue to be objects of interest to modern philosophers, logicians and physicists. The term “super-task” itself was coined by J.F. Thomson (1954). Here we begin with an overview of the analysis of supertasks and their mechanics. We then discuss the possibility of supertasks from the perspective of general relativity.

Luke in the preface of his Gospel says that he is going to write ‘in an orderly account’ (Lk 1:3). However, scholars have no consensus about the kind of order Luke is seeking. Many believe that Luke writes as a historian. Because Greco-Roman historians seem to have a practice to indicate in their prefaces the writing methodologies of their writings, this article aims to ascertain Luke’s writing order through a comparison of Luke’s two prefaces with those in the writings of (...) the Greco-Roman historians. This article proposes that Luke most likely adopts the common writing methodologies of the Greco-Roman historians and writes in chronological order. (shrink)

This essay attempts to investigate the prospects for a certain model of rational argumentation, what we call a dialectical model. More specifically, we assess the utility of this model for the purposes of inquiry. Dialectical inquiry consists in a rule-governed discussion between two or more interlocutors in which the acceptability of a claim is determined by laying out and criticizing the support available for it. Models of dialectical argumentative discussion have been proposed before, and part of this work consists in (...) a critical outline of three relatively recent models, those of Rescher, Toulmin, and van Eemeren and Grootendorst. The remainder of the essay evaluates and defends a set of standards of dialectical adequacy. We defend cogency standards of acceptability, relevance, and sufficiency and pragmatic standards embodied in a set of rules of discussion. The impetus of the work is a desire to have a model through which we may rationally assess the acceptability of claims.Dept. of Philosophy. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1990.J674. Source: Masterss International, Volume: 30-03, page: 0419. Thesis --University of Windsor, 1990. (shrink)

Background: Legislation on physician-assisted suicide is being considered in a number of states since the passage of the Oregon Death With Dignity Act in 1994. Opinion assessment surveys have historically assessed particular subsets of physicians.Objective: To determine variables predictive of physicians’ opinions on PAS in a rural state, Vermont, USA.Design: Cross-sectional mailing survey.Participants: 1052 physicians licensed by the state of Vermont.Results: Of the respondents, 38.2% believed PAS should be legalised, 16.0% believed it should be prohibited and 26.0% believed it should (...) not be legislated. 15.7% were undecided. Males were more likely than females to favour legalisation . Physicians who did not care for patients through the end of life were significantly more likely to favour legalisation of PAS than physicians who do care for patients with terminal illness . 30% of the respondents had experienced a request for assistance with suicide.Conclusions: Vermont physicians’ opinions on the legalisation of PAS is sharply polarised. Patient autonomy was a factor strongly associated with opinions in favour of legalisation, whereas the sanctity of the doctor–patient relationship was strongly associated with opinions in favour of not legislating PAS. Those in favour of making PAS illegal overwhelmingly cited moral and ethical beliefs as factors in their opinion. Although opinions on legalisation appear to be based on firmly held beliefs, approximately half of Vermont physicians who responded to the survey agree that there is a need for more education in palliative care and pain management. (shrink)

ABSTRACTSolving a conflict between two response options in an interference task has been found to increase control in a subsequent conflict situation. The present research examined whether such conflict adaptation persists in the presence of distractors that have motivational relevance and are therefore competing for attentional resources. In an adjusted flanker task, motivational distractors were presented together with the current trial while the previous trial never included any distractor. Accumulated evidence across three studies showed that motivational distractors reduced the conflict (...) adaptation effect. This was found irrespective of the location at which the distractor occurred, and independent of its valence. Study 3 and a merged data analysis ruled out low-level alternative explanations. In line with a dual competition account (P... (shrink)

Over the last decades, it has become evident that highly complex networks of regulators govern post‐transcriptional regulation of gene expression. A novel class of Argonaute (Ago)‐associated RNA molecules, the agotrons, was recently shown to function in a Drosha‐ and Dicer‐independent manner, hence bypassing the maturation steps required for canonical microRNA (miRNA) biogenesis. Agotrons are found in most mammals and associate with Ago as ∼100 nucleotide (nt) long RNA species. Here, we speculate on the functional and biological relevance of agotrons: (i) (...) agotrons could serve as non‐promiscuous miRNA‐like regulators with reduced off‐targeting or (ii) agotrons could encompass other putative functions, such as protecting Ago proteins from taking up aberrant short RNAs or by rescuing and stabilizing otherwise unloaded Ago‐proteins from degradation. Collectively, agotrons have emerged as a novel class of interesting non‐coding RNA molecules, but their full functional potential and biological impact still remain to be disclosed. (shrink)

This study examines whether scenic beauty judgments based upon photographs of landscapes are similar to scenic beauty judgments based upon on-site experiences of landscapes. Two concerns are emphasized: a concern about the threat to the ecological validity of photo-based assessments caused by differences between on-site and photo-based contexts and a concern that the individual rater, rather than the group average, is the more appropriate unit of analysis for tests of validity of photo-based assessments. On-site scenic beauty assessments were collected from (...) day hikers. These data were compared to photo-based scenic beauty assessments collected from the same persons three months and nine months after their on-site experience. Approximately 38% of participants had insignificant correlations between their on-site and photo-based scenic beauty ratings. These and other results suggest that the validity of photo-based scenic beauty assessments is in doubt, at least for the situation studied here. Moreover, the results suggest that the difference between persons' on-site and photo-based ratings can be explained, in part, by contextual factors such as the mood, meaning, and novelty that differentiate photo-based from on-site landscape experiences. Group averaged on-site and photo-based assessments, however, were very similar, suggesting caution may be in order for studies interpreting summary measures. (shrink)

It is commonly assumed that low-mass primordial black holes cannot constitute a significant fraction of the dark matter in our universe due to their predicted short lifetimes from the conventional Hawking radiation and evaporation process. Assuming physical black holes are nonsingular--likely due to quantum gravity or other high-energy physics--we demonstrate that a large class of nonsingular black holes have finite evaporation temperatures. This can lead to slowly evaporating low-mass black holes or to remnant mass states that circumvent traditional evaporation constraints. (...) As a proof of concept, we explore the limiting curvature hypothesis and the evaporation process of a nonsingular black hole solution in two-dimensional dilaton gravity. We identify generic features of the radiation profile and compare them with known regular black holes, such as the Bardeen solution in four dimensions. Remnant masses are proportional to the fundamental length scale, and we argue that slowly evaporating low-mass nonsingular black holes, or remnants, are viable dark matter candidates. (shrink)

We explore themes in Nobel Prize–winning economist James M. Buchanan’s work and apply hisEthics and Economic Progressto problems facing individuals and firms. We focus on Buchanan’s analysis of the individual work ethic, his exhortations to “pay the preacher” of the “institutions of moral-ethical communication,” and his notion of law as “public capital.” We highlight several ways people with other-regarding preferences can contribute to social flourishing and some of the ways those who have “affected to trade for the public good” might (...) want to redirect their efforts. We show how Buchanan’s work has considerable implications for business ethics. Just as his economic analysis of politics changed how we understand government, we think his economic analysis of ethics can (and should) change how we understand business. (shrink)

A number of nonmonotonic reasoning formalisms have been introduced to model the set of beliefs of an agent. These include the extensions of a default logic, the stable models of a general logic program, and the extensions of a truth maintenance system among others. In [13] and [16], the authors introduced nonmonotomic rule systems as a nonlogical generalization of all essential features of such formulisms so that theorems applying to all could be proven once and for all. In this paper, (...) we extend Rieter's normal default theories, which have a number of the nice properties which make them a desirable context for belief revision, to the setting of nonmonotonic rule systems. Reiter defined a default theory to be normal if all the rules of the default theory satisfied a simple syntatic condition. However, this simple syntatic condition has no obvious analogue in the setting of nonmonotonic rule systems. Nevertheless, an analysis of the proofs of the main results on normal default theories reveals that the proofs do not rely on the particular syntactic form of the rules but rather on the fact that all rules have a certain consistency property. This led us to extend the notion of normal default theories with respect to a general consistency property. This extended notion of normal default theories, which we call Forward Chaining normal , is easily lifted to nonmonotomic rule systems and hence applies to general logic programs and truth maintenance. (shrink)

Ethical conflicts have always been connected with new techniques of reproductive medicine such as in-vitro fertilization. The fundamental question is: When does human life begin and from which stage of development should the embryo be protected? This question cannot be solved by scientific findings only. In prenatal ontogenesis there is no moment during the development from the fertilized oocyte to a human being which could be recognized as an orientation point for all ethical problems connected with the question of the (...) right to dispose of prenatal life (interruption of pregnancy, research on embryos). The protection of an individual human life must be valid for all in the same manner and from the very beginning on. It must not depend on value judgments or on stages of development, so-called grades of humanity, because these would then become selection criteria. Procreated life must have the right to be born. These were the essential ethical arguments which led to the German Embryo Protection Law. (shrink)

In earlier writings, I have sought to establish a link between Howard Phillips Lovecraft and Romanticism, and this paper adds to that body of work. -/- The essay begins with a preliminary sketch of the use of gardens in Romantic thought and the highlighting of six themes: contemplation, joy, the dramatic, the strange, the foreign, and the beautiful, that all underpins Romanticism. -/- This is followed by an elucidation of Lovecraft’s fascination with gardens, his dealings in Romantic themes, and what (...) role they play in his short 1917 poem “A Garden”. -/- The essay concludes that given Lovecraft’s love of gardens and that his poem “A Garden” is imbued with Romantic themes and involves ‘wondrous contemplation’ and ‘poetic knowledge’, the case for his Romanticism has been strengthened. (shrink)

One of the most robust findings in psychopathology is the fact that specific phobias are more prevalent in women than in men. Although there are several theoretical accounts for biological and social contributions to this gender difference, empirical data are surprisingly limited. Interestingly, there is evidence that individuals with stereotypical feminine characteristics are more fearful than those with stereotypical masculine characteristics; this is beyond biological sex. Because gender role stereotypes are reinforced by parental behavior, we aimed to examine the relationship (...) of maternal gender stereotypes and children’s fear. Dyads of 38 mothers and their daughters were included. We assessed maternal implicit and explicit gender stereotypes as well as their daughters’ self-reported general fearfulness, specific fear of snakes, and approach behavior toward a living snake. First, mothers’ fear of snakes significantly correlated with their daughters’ fear of snakes. Second, mothers’ gender stereotypes significantly correlated with their daughters’ self-reported fear. Specifically, maternal implicit gender stereotypes were associated with daughters’ fear of snakes and fear ratings in response to the snake. Moreover, in children, self-reported fear correlated with avoidance of the fear-relevant animal. Together, these results provide first evidence for a potential role of parental gender stereotypes in the development and maintenance of fear in their offspring. (shrink)