Financial relationships and business transactions between physicians and the health care industry are common. These relationships take a variety of forms, including payments to physicians in exchange for consulting services, reimbursement of physician travel expenses when attending medical device and pharmaceutical educational conferences, physician ownership in life science company stocks, and the provision of free drug samples. Such practices are not intrinsic to medical practice, but as the Institute of Medicine described in its 2009 report, these relationships have the potential (...) to produce positive collaborations that improve patient care and public health, and most physicians view it as “ethically proper to accept items ranging from drug samples to a lucrative consultantship.”However, financial relationships between physicians and pharmaceutical, medical device and biotechnology companies can also create negative influences on physician judgment that compromise patient care and jeopardize the public’s trust. (shrink)

Sex determination in most organisms involves a simple binary fate choice between male or female development; the outcome of this decision has profound effects on organismal biology, biochemistry and behaviour. In the nematode C. elegans, there is also a binary choice, either male or hermaphrodite. In C. elegans, distinct genetic pathways control somatic and germline sexual cell fate. Both pathways share a common set of globally acting regulatory genes; however, germline-specific regulatory genes also participate in the decision to make male (...) or female gametes. The determination of sexual fate in the germline of the facultative hermaphrodite poses a special problem, because first sperm then oocytes are produced. It has emerged that additional layers of post-transcriptional regulation have been imposed to modulate the activities of the global sex-determining genes, tra-2 and fem-3; the balance between these activities is crucial in controlling sexual cell fate in the hermaphrodite germline. BioEssays 23:596–604, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Reck has rendered the philosophical community an invaluable service in providing these lucid, systematic and faithful expositions of the thought of the ten men he has selected: R. B. Perry, W. E. Hocking, G. H. Mead, J. E. Boodin, W. M. Urban, D. H. Parker, R. W. Sellars, A. O. Lovejoy, E. Jordan and E. S. Brightman. Included is a general introduction in which Reck offers a brief perspective upon the extra ordinary diversity and richness characteristic of the period (...) in American philosophy which these men represent. Bibliographical notes are given at the end of each chapter.—E. A. R. (shrink)

This is the second of five chapters on good, and starts by making the point that it is around the question of the intrinsically good that the chief controversies about the nature of goodness or value revolve, for most theories of value may be divided into those that treat it as a quality and those that treat it as a relation between that which has value and something else ; Ross says that it seems clear that any view that treats (...) goodness as a relation between that which is good and something else denies that anything is intrinsically good. The chapter first discusses R. B. Perry's relational view of value—in the sense of good, and other theories that also identify goodness with some relation, either as a relation between that which is good and some or all of its elements, or as a relation between some or all of its elements, or as a relation between it or some or all of its elements and something else. Next, the psychological theories of good are discussed; these, as a rule, hold that a thing being good means either that some person or persons have some feelings towards it, or some person or persons think it to be good; this is an objective view of good. The rest of the chapter looks at both R. B. Perry's and G. E. Moore's arguments on these theories, at Ross's own views, at badness as incompatible with goodness or as an element of a good thing, at W. M. Urban's work on the question of values, and at B. Croce's arguments on value judgements. Ross concludes that the arguments in favour of thinking of value as an objective are no more successful than those in favour of treating it as a relation, and presents a lengthy validation of his conclusion, based largely on discussion of beauty and goodness. (shrink)

Epilepsy surgery is the most effective therapeutic approach for children with drug resistant epilepsy. Recent advances in neurosurgery, such as the Laser Interstitial Thermal Therapy, improved the safety and non-invasiveness of this method. Electric and magnetic source imaging plays critical role in the delineation of the epileptogenic focus during the presurgical evaluation of children with DRE. Yet, they are currently underutilized even in tertiary epilepsy centers. Here, we present a case of an adolescent who suffered from DRE for 16 years (...) and underwent surgery at Cook Children's Medical Center. The patient was previously evaluated in a level 4 epilepsy center and treated with multiple antiseizure medications for several years. Presurgical evaluation at CCMC included long-term video electroencephalography, magnetoencephalography with simultaneous conventional EEG and high-density EEG in two consecutive sessions, MRI, and fluorodeoxyglucose - positron emission tomography. Video long-term EEG captured nine focal-onset clinical seizures with a maximal evolution over the right frontal/frontal midline areas. MRI was initially interpreted as non-lesional. FDG-PET revealed a small region of hypometabolism at the anterior right superior temporal gyrus. ESI and MSI performed with dipole clustering showed a tight cluster of dipoles in the right anterior insula. The patient underwent intracranial EEG which indicated the right anterior insular as seizure onset zone. Eventually LITT rendered the patient seizure free. Retrospective analysis of ESI and MSI clustered dipoles found a mean distance of dipoles from the ablated volume ranging from 10 to 25 mm. Our findings highlight the importance of recent technological advances in the presurgical evaluation and surgical treatment of children with DRE, and the underutilization of epilepsy surgery in children with DRE. (shrink)

Four models of forgiveness are identified; the health model, the philosophical model, the Christian model and the prosocial model. All define the term ‘forgiveness’ in a way which is consistent with their particular perspective. The authors offer a definition of forgiveness and propose an integrated model of forgiveness which seeks to incorporate contributions from all four areas, but is not biased towards any one model. Four levels of transgression are identified and categorized according to the degree of perceived damage. Apology-automatic (...) and apology-dependent responses are distinguished from a forgiveness response which is restricted to Levels 3 and 4. The advantages of adopting a forgiveness strategy for both the forgiver and forgiven as opposed to other responses, i.e., revenge, denial, and condoning are discussed. The authors provide a definition and model which integrates the important contributions from each of the areas discussed. (shrink)

To examine the ethical issues involved in governmental decisions with potential health risks, we review the history of the decision to raise the interurban speed limit in Israel in light of its impact on road death and injury. In 1993, the Israeli Ministry of Transportation initiated an “experiment” to raise the interurban speed limit from 90 to 100 kph. The “experiment” did not include a protocol and did not specify cut-off points for early termination in the case of adverse results. (...) After the raise in the speed limit, the death toll on interurban roads rose as a result of a sudden increase in speeds and case fatality rates. The committee's decision is a case study in unfettered human experimentation and public health risks when the setting is non-medical and lacks a defined ethical framework. The case study states the case for extending Helsinki type safeguards to experimentation in non-medical settings. (shrink)

Although it is frequently overlooked, J.S. Mill's political philosophy has a significant civic component; he is a committed believer in the value of active and disinterested participation in public affairs by the citizens of liberal democracies, and he advocates a programme of civic education intended to cultivate public spirit. In the first half of this essay I present a brief but systematic exploration of his thought's civic dimension. In the second half I defend Mill's civic liberalism against various critics who (...) have explicitly or implicitly charged that the civic and liberal components of his political philosophy are inconsistent. (shrink)

Increasingly, voices in the growing neurodiversity movement are alleging that individuals who are neurologically divergent, such as those with conditions related to bipolar disorder, autism, schizophrenia, and depression, must struggle for their civil rights. This movement therefore raises questions of interest to scholars in the humanities and social sciences, as well as to concerned members of the general public. These questions have to do with such matters as the accessibility of knowledge about mental health; autonomy and community within the realm (...) of the mentally ill; and accommodation in civil society and its institutions. The contributors to Ethics and Neurodiversity explore these questions, and the traditional philosophical questions related to them. The authors pay special attention to the need to examine the policies and practices of institutions, such as higher education, social support, and healthcare. (shrink)

Originally published in 1928, this book contains a general introduction to the science of map reading. Laborde builds on the materials he used to teach the subject at Harrow School to create a thoroughly illustrated and practical guide to maps, their creation and their decipherment. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the history of cartography or the history of education.

In his Morality and Religion , W. W. Bartley III states that ‘the chief aim of this study is to get clearer about the extent to which morality and religion may be interdependent’ . After stating various possible alternatives, in terms of the logical relationships of derivability and compatibility, which are relevant to this issue, Prof. Bartley in fact devotes his book to a consid eration of four views: Morality is reducible to religion. Religion is reducible to morality. Morality and (...) religion are in conflict . Morality and religion are inseparable. (shrink)

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.