Formal definitions of the following concepts of animal ecology are given: environment, niche, locality, local population, natural population, community, ecosystem. Five primitive (undefined) notions are used including "animal", "offspring" and "habitat", the latter in the sense of Charles Elton. The defining equations for the environment of one animal are first given, then niche (in the Elton sense) is formally defined in terms of the environment. The fifth primitve notion "habitat" is then introduced in order to define the remaining concepts.

La idea de que los delirios son creencias es apoyada por la observación de que los delirios, al igual que las creencias, son usados en el razonamiento. Sin embargo, los delirios tienen otras características que son difíciles de explicar por medio de una teoría doxástica —por ejemplo, los delirios persisten a pesar de la evidencia en su contra y algunas veces entran en conflicto con las acciones del agente (de maneras en que las creencias parecerían no hacerlo), dando lugar a (...) lo que se conoce como el fenómeno de la doble cuenta—. Estas características han motivado teorías no doxásticas, que argumentan que los delirios son otro tipo de fenómeno mental (e.g., imaginaciones o actos de habla vacíos). Mientras que las teorías no-doxásticas pueden explicar dichas características de los delirios—como su persistencia a pesar de la evidencia en su contra y el fenómeno de la doble cuenta— estas teorías tienen dificultades para explicar las características de los delirios que los hacen similares a las creencias. Nos encontramos entonces en un punto muerto en el que ni los enfoques doxásticos ni los no doxásticos pueden explicar todas las características de los delirios. En este artículo, propongo avanzar en este debate mostrando que la propuesta doxástica puede, después de todo, dar cuenta tanto de las características de los delirios que los hacen similares a las creencias como de sus demás características. Basándome en literatura reciente en epistemología, argumento que las creencias (racionales) puede estar motivadas por factores no evidenciales (e.g. pragmáticos o emocionales) y que estos factores sirven para explicar las características aparentemente desconcertantes de los delirios. También propongo que categorizar las creencias a través de dos compartimentos funcionales, el implícito y el explícito, nos ayuda a entender la interacción dinámica entre creencias delirantes y no delirantes. (shrink)

Simultaneous discovery in science has been a subject of close historical investigations, not only for assessing claims of priority, which occasionally generate controversy rather than consensus, but also for understanding the cultural and intellectual context of the time. Thomas S. Kuhn is a pioneer in the contextual study of simultaneous discovery, and his paper on the formulation of the first law of thermodynamics has already become a classic.

Medical confidentiality is a core concept of professionalism and should be an integral part of pregraduate and postgraduate medical education. The aim of our study was to define the factors influencing attitudes towards patient confidentiality in everyday situations in order to define the need for offering further education to various subgroups of physicians. All internists and general practitioners who were registered members of the association of physicians in Geneva or who were working in the department of internal medicine or in (...) the medical polyclinic of the University Hospital of Geneva in 2004 received a standardised questionnaire. Physicians were asked to indicate for seven vignettes whether a violation of confidentiality had occurred and whether the violation was not important, important or serious (scores 1–3; no violation = 0). 508 completed questionnaires were returned (participation rate 55%). Physicians who had worked in the hospital for more than 20 years identified violations of confidentiality more often than physicians with less hospital experience. Binary logistic regression showed that ethics education, total years of professional experience, being an internist, having a private practice, the length of working in private practice and gender were factors associated with correct identification of violations and their severity. However, each factor played a specific role only for single cases or a small number of situations (Cronbach α <0.6). Postgraduate education programs on confidentiality should be offered to a wide range of physicians and should address specific hypothetical situations in which there is a risk of avoidable breaches of confidentiality. (shrink)

This paper addresses whether universal, general education programs are enough to satisfy basic criteria of human rights, or whether comprehensive family planning programs, in conjunction with universal education programs, might also be morally required. Even before the Reagan administration instituted the ‘global gag rule’ at the 1984 conference in Mexico City, prohibiting funding to nongovernmental organizations that included providing information about abortion as a possible method of family planning, the moral acceptability of family planning programs has been called into question. (...) This paper makes a moral argument for family planning by appealing to both data and to theory: data about the efficacy of universal and comprehensive family planning education programs at reducing fertility and infant mortality, and theory about what is required for the establishment of autonomy. It reasons that universal educational programs are insufficient for the promotion of autonomy, and therefore argues on substantive autonomy grounds for comprehensive family planning programs in addition to universal education programs. (shrink)