Background: Detecting and classifying fish diseases is crucial for maintaining the health and sustainability of aquaculture systems. This study employs deep learning techniques, particularly Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), to automate the detection of various fish diseases using image data. Methods: The study utilizes a carefully curated dataset sourced from the Kaggle database, comprising images representing seven distinct types of fish diseases, along with images of healthy fish. Data preprocessing techniques, including resizing, rescaling, denoising, sharpening, and smoothing, are applied to enhance (...) image quality and facilitate accurate disease detection. Data augmentation is employed to increase the model's ability to generalize to unseen data. The CNN architecture is designed with cascading convolutional layers, ReLU activation functions, and pooling operations to extract high-level features associated with fish infections. The model architecture, implemented using the Keras Sequential API, includes convolutional layers, max pooling layers, and densely connected layers for classification. Results: Experimental results demonstrated promising performance across various disease categories, with high accuracy and balanced precision and recall values for most classes. The study also discussed the impact of climate change on fish disease incidence and underscores the importance of effective monitoring and management practices facilitated by technological innovations such as Big Data, IoT, sensors, and robotics in ensuring sustainable fisheries management. (shrink)

In this reflection piece, Ralph Johnson provides an account of the development of informal logic and how it intersected with the Critical Thinking Movement. Section I is an account of the origins of what Johnson calls the “Informal Logic Initiative.” Section II discusses how the Informal Logic Initiative connected with the Critical Thinking Movement at the Sonoma State University Conferences starting in 1981. Section III discusses the relationship between logic and critical thinking. Section IV describes “The Network Problem,” which emerged (...) for Johnson in the mid-1980s – largely as a result of his experiences at critical thinking conferences, especially the Sonoma State conference. Section V expresses some concerns about the current status of critical thinking as an educational idea and about the Critical Thinking Movement. (shrink)

Drawing on the great wealth of knowledge and experience of education practitioners and theorists, the volumes in the Sociology of Education set of the International library of Sociology explore the very important relationship between education and society. These books became standard texts for actual and intending teachers. Drawing upon comparative material from Israel, France and Germany, titles in this set also discuss the key questions of girls' and special needs education, and the psychology of education.

This paper sets out to examine the integrity and professional standing of “Bioethics.” It argues that professions have certain responsibilities that start with setting criteria for and credentialing those that have met the criteria and goes on to ultimately have social responsibilities to the community. As it now stands we claim that Bioethics—while it certainly has achieved some progress in the way medicine has developed—has failed to become a profession and has to a large extent failed in its social responsibility. (...) We feel that Bioethics has to define itself, set criteria for membership in the profession, police itself and—above all—meet its social responsibility to become a profession meriting that name. (shrink)

Biography of Ibn Rushd... Averroes, old heathen, If only you had been right, if Intellect Itself were absolute law, sufficient grace. Our lives could be a myth of captivity. Which we might enter: an unpeopled region.

Die Medikalisierung des Sterbens hat dazu geführt, dass ein „guter Tod“ zunehmend auch von medizinischen Interventionen erwartet wird. Die Möglichkeiten einer „terminalen Sedierung“ bis zum Tode werden von vielen als Ausweg angesehen, wenn bei unerträglichem Leid und aussichtsloser Prognose der Wunsch nach aktiver Sterbehilfe angesprochen wird. Durch eine Sedierung können zwar bei schwerstkranken Patienten schwerste therapierefraktäre Leidenszustände effektiv gelindert werden. Diese Therapieoption kann aber auch in der Absicht angewendet werden, den Todeseintritt medizinisch zu beschleunigen, so dass im Zusammenhang mit der (...) Euthanasiedebatte auch das Thema der terminalen Sedierung kontrovers diskutiert wird. Richtlinien zu Indikation, Technik und Dokumentation sind notwendig, um Stellenwert und Grenzen der terminalen Sedierung im Rahmen der palliativen Betreuung am Lebensende zu verdeutlichen und durch Transparenz Fehlentwicklungen zu vermeiden. (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)