The collected essays and consensus statements of the second round of the National Evangelical-Catholic Dialogue, and the second book of the series on Evangelicals and Catholics in dialogue. The essays address the Christian ideal of life lived in pursuit of the good that is God, and the witness and imitation of God's action in Christ, as a pathway to fruitful dialogue between Catholics and Evangelicals.

This essay explores some concerns about the quality of informed consent in patients whose autonomy is diminished by fatal illness. It argues that patients with diminished autonomy cannot give free and voluntary consent, and that recruitment of such patients as subjects in human experimentation exploits their vulnerability in a morally objectionable way. Two options are given to overcome this objection: (i) recruit only those patients who desire to contribute to medical knowledge, rather than gain access to experimental treatment, or (ii) (...) provide prospective subjects the choice to participate in standard doubleblind study or receive the experimental treatment. Either option would guarantee that patients in desperate conditions are given a more meaningful choice and a richer freedom, and thus a higher quality of informed consent, than under standard randomized trials. (shrink)

Although much of great interest has been written recently about the period of the socalled Peace of Philocrates, little or nothing has been said of a passage which provides important information in Justin's Epitome of the Historiae Philippicae of Pompeius Trogus. This passage, 8.3.12–15, comes between the destruction of Olynthus and the arrival of the Athenian envoys at Pella . In subject matter it corresponds with ‘the subjugation of Thrace and Thessaly’ in Prologue 8 of Pompeius Trogus – a topic (...) which Justin began in 8.3.1–6 and continued in our passage, 8.3.12–15. (shrink)

It was a characteristic of Macedonian custom that a name was used in a special and in a general sense. For example, ‘Foot-Companions’ was the name of a Bodyguard of Philip and also of the men of the Phalanx-Brigades from Lower Macedonia, and ‘Hypaspists’ was the name of Infantry-Guardsmen of Alexander and also of the men of three Hypaspist Phalanx-Brigades. Geographical names were repeated: there were at least two regions and two cities called ‘Emathia’, two or three regions called ‘Doberus’, (...) four cites called Philippi or Philippopolis, and Alexandrias galore. To a modern mind this makes for confusion. That is certainly the case with the names ‘Macedonia’ and ‘Macedones’, which I shall treat separately in this article. (shrink)

The evidence of ancient books points to the surprising conclusion that in texts of drama or prose dialogue changes of speaker were not usually marked by the name of the new speaker. Instead the ancient reader had a colon, sometimes combined with a paragraphus or stroke in the margin, to guide him. The inconvenience of this practice and the muddle it caused need no emphasis. The facts have been assembled for the text of Plato and Lucian by J. Andrieu , (...) and for Aristophanes by J. C. B. Lowe , 27–42). As far as prose dialogues are concerned confirmation can be found in an unexpected source: the prologue to the dialogue Eranistes by the fifth-century church father Theodoret. (shrink)

This article considers recent arguments against the proposition that one and the same object cannot go out of existence and then come into existence again (so that, e.g., teleportation would involve change of identity.). It argues that these arguments can be evaded by adopting a four-dimensional ontology, according to which human beings, trees, etc., have temporal as well as spatial parts.

Those who have studied the Athenian system of command in the fifth century have confined themselves almost entirely to the period after 440 B.C. They have raked over the evidence to discover signs of double representation of one tribe on the board of strategi, or of a supreme among the or of a chairman at least of the board of strategi. On the other hand little attention is paid to the progressive diminution of the military functions of the archon polemarchus (...) within the state and to the great problems created in external affairs by the Persian Wars with the formation of the Greek League and then of the Athenian Alliance. Yet these matters are vital to the evolution of the system of command which can be seen in operation after 440 B.C. In particular the decisive steps were probably taken in 480–466 B.C., when Athens' national system of command had first to be integrated into a command-system of combined forces headed by Sparta in the Persian Wars and then adapted to take over the command of combined forces in continuous warfare against Persia. In this article I try to study the whole field and to avoid applying to the early part of the period the theories which have been evolved hitherto with special reference to Pericles in 440–428 B.C. The article consists of the following sections. A, Strategos and Hegemon in 501/0. B, C, current ideas on the modern term D, the historical origins of the so-called E, summary of conclusions. (shrink)

The problem of the composition of Thucydides' History, first raised by Ullrich in 1846, has evoked a mass of controversial literature. In this article I shall confine myself to the main arguments and conclusions. Thucydides' history is unfinished, not only because it breaks off at 411 b.c., but also because the style is uneven. The history of the Archidamian War to 424 b.c. and of the Sicilian War is fully polished and complete; the remainder is lacking in stylistic finish and (...) particularly in the set speeches which characterize the completed books. This unevenness can be explained by the circumstances of Thucydides' life. For the period 431–424 b.c. he could obtain full information at Athens and, after his exile in 424 b.c., at Sparta and elsewhere; for the Sicilian War he could obtain full information in Sicily from the Siceliotes and from the Athenian prisoners. He was thus in a position to complete his history for these two periods. During his exile from 424 b.c. to 404 or 403 b.c. he lacked the information from the Athenian side, which was necessary for the completion of the remainder of his work. Further light is shed on the unevenness of finish by Thucydides' method of composition. He informs us that he began his work at the beginning of the war, and that he was watching and applying his judgement throughout the Twenty-seven Years War; and the statement that he wrote the history down to the capture of the Peiraeus implies his collection of material down to 404 b.c. The working up of this material must have been conditioned partly by the circumstances of the war; in particular, the conception of the Twenty-seven Years War cannot have been formed until after 415 or 412 b.c. (shrink)

IntroductionExperimental research on animals has been guided by principles of the three Rs: reduction, refinement and replacement.1 Recently the fourth R—rehabilitation—has also been incorporated to enhance the welfare of animals that are used in research. With growing scientific curiosity and increasing research, animal use has anything but reduced despite the fact that modern technology has brought to fore many alternatives to animal use.2 ,3 There are many arguments for and against animal use. In India, there has been a proposal to (...) ban the use of animals for training and academic purposes, as reported in two major daily newspapers. This has evoked mixed reactions from the scientific community. We conducted this study to assess the awareness, attitudes and practices regarding the use of animals and their alternatives, in medical training and research amongst medical teachers and students.Study designA …. (shrink)

Alzheimer's disease is characterized by amyloid-beta peptide -loaded plaques in the brain. Abeta is a cleavage fragment of amyloid-beta protein precursor and over production of APP may lead to amyloidogenesis. The regulatory region of the APP gene contains consensus sites recognized by the transcription factor, specificity protein 1 , which has been shown to be required for the regulation of APP and Abeta. To understand the role of SP1 in APP biogenesis, herein we have characterized the relative distribution and localization (...) of SP1, APP, and Abeta in various brain regions of rodent and primate models using immunohistochemistry. We observed that overall distribution and cellular localization of SP1, APP, and Abeta are similar and neuronal in origin. Their distribution is abundant in various layers of neocortex, but restricted to the Purkinje cell layer of the cerebellum, and the pyramidal cell layer of hippocampus. These findings suggest that overproduction of Abeta in vivo may be associated with transcriptional pathways involving SP1 and the APP gene. (shrink)

The lettering of this inscription begins at the very top of the block, just below the straight edge, and stops half-way down the block, the lower part being smoothed but uninscribed. As the inscription is not set centrally on the block, it is probably the continuation of an inscription which ran on a block once superimposed upon it. Doubtful letters are those which are marked by the dot underneath; and W. Peek reported in Ath. Mitt. lxvi, 200 n. 2, that (...) he had seen the top of the v which Vollgraff suggested in the restorationThe inscription is dated to the seventh century B.C. by epigraphists. The stone itself was seen in 1729 by Fourmont and rediscovered in 1928 by Vollgraff; it was in the wall of a Venetian tower on the Larissa or acropolis of Argos. No one knows whence the Venetians had taken it. Therefore Vollgraff's suggestion that it had originally been set up in porta arcis regiae is no more than an attractive speculation. (shrink)

Upshot: According to Biology of Cognition and Language (Maturana’s approach) the immune system is not a cognitive system and defining of a cognitive paradigm is not what we understand as a Maturanian approach to immunology. The true cognitive actions in immunology are performed by immunologists acting as observers, not by body organs or systems. Stimuli and responses are not adequate concepts in the description of systems. As a closed network of cellular/molecular interactions, the immune system yields patterns of activity as (...) is transparent in robust conserved profiles of reactivity of natural immunoglobulins, as investigated by Nóbrega et al. and Cohen et al., which offer the opportunity to unravel its natural, spontaneous activity. Dietary materials, products of the commensal microbiome are the most abundant and common elements continuously incorporated to the network activity and, thus, also represent an important avenue of investigation. (shrink)

Background: More and more quantitative information is becoming available about the risks of complications arising from medical treatment. In everyday practice, this raises the question whether each and every risk, however low, should be disclosed to patients. What could be good reasons for doing or not doing so? This will increasingly become a dilemma for practitioners.Objective: To report doctors’ views on whether to disclose or withhold information on low risks of complications.Methods: In a qualitative study design, 37 respondents were included. (...) Focus group interviews were held with 22 respondents and individual in-depth interviews with 15.Results: Doctors have doubts about disclosing or withholding information on complication risk, especially in a risk range of 1 in 200 to 1 in 10 000. Their considerations on whether to disclose or to withhold information depend on a complicated mix of patient and doctor-associated reasons; on medical and personal considerations; and on the kind and purpose of intervention.Discussion: Even though the degree of a risk is important in a doctor’s considerations, the severity of the possible complications and patients’ wishes and competencies have an important role as well. Respondents said that low risks should always be communicated when there are alternatives for the intervention or when the patient may prevent or mitigate the risk. When the appropriateness of disclosing risks is doubtful, doctors should always tell their patients that no intervention is without risk, give them the opportunity to gather all the information they need or want, and enable them to detect a complication at an early stage. (shrink)

We apply an online optimization process based on machine learning to the production of Bose-Einstein condensates. BEC is typically created with an exponential evaporation ramp that is optimal for ergodic dynamics with two-body s-wave interactions and no other loss rates, but likely sub-optimal for real experiments. Through repeated machine-controlled scientific experimentation and observations our ’learner’ discovers an optimal evaporation ramp for BEC production. In contrast to previous work, our learner uses a Gaussian process to develop a statistical model of the (...) relationship between the parameters it controls and the quality of the BEC produced. We demonstrate that the Gaussian process machine learner is able to discover a ramp that produces high quality BECs in 10 times fewer iterations than a previously used online optimization technique. Furthermore, we show the internal model developed can be used to determine which parameters are essential in BEC creation and which are unimportant, providing insight into the optimization process of the system. (shrink)

This paper describes the escape/intervention concept as it is used in the agent growing environment framework. The Escape and Intervention is used in many multi-disciplinary areas, including agent research, artificial intelligence, groupware and workflow, process support, software engineering, and social sciences. Based on an ontological perspective, this paper explains how an interaction-oriented agent architecture and language (used for modelling, simulation, and development) makes use of an interaction pattern that is inspired from social contexts seen as multi-agent systems.