This article discusses common ethical and practical considerations in psychosocial and behavioral research in healthcare. Issues such as appropriate objectives and intent, risk-benefit ratios, research design, and human subject protection are explored. The burden of ethical research design and implementation is placed on the investigator, rather than relying solely on institutional review boards to judge individual projects. The benefit of acquisition of knowledge must be balanced against the burdens of the research on society in general and human subjects specifically. Scientific (...) replication of research is encouraged, unnecessary duplication defined and discouraged, and benefits of true collaboration outlined. Investigators are advised to consider the context, intent, purpose, implementation, and use of information when developing research. The concept of “researcher myopia” is defined as a common stumbling block. It is suggested that academic researchers also look to other disciplines, such as industry, for examples of research that is concise, cost-effective, and reliable. (shrink)

Background: Relatively little is known about neonatologists' roles in helping families navigate the difficult decision to attempt or withhold resuscitation for a neonate delivering at the threshold...

From the standpoint of the theory of medicine, a formulation is given of three types of reasoning used by physicians. The first is deduction from probability models (as in prognosis or genetic counseling for Mendelian disorders). It is a branch of mathematics that leads to predictive statements about outcomes of individual events in terms of known formal assumptions and parameters. The second type is inference (as in interpreting clinical trials). In it the arguments from replications of the same process (data) (...) lead to conclusions about the parameters of a system, without calling into question either the probabilistic model or the criteria of evidence. The third is illation (as in the elucidation of symptoms in a patient). It is a process whereby, in the light of the total evidence and the conclusions from the other types of reasoning, one may modify, expand, simplify or demolish a conceptual framework proposed for deductions, and modify the nature of the evidence sought, the criteriology, the axioms, and the surmised complexity of the scientific theory. (The process of diagnosis as applied to a patient may in extreme cases lead to the discovery of an entirely new disease with its own, quite new, set of diagnostic criteria. This course cannot be accommodated inside either of the other two types of reasoning.) Illation has something of the character of Kuhn's scientific revolution in physics; but it differs in that it is the nature, not the degree or frequency of change that distinguishes it from Kuhn's normal science. (shrink)

Over the last two decades judges (and regulators) in all common law jurisdictions have increased their reliance on published medical and scientific literature. During the same period biomedical research has undergone fundamental and unprecedented change. This article explores some of the changes to the location, organization and funding of biomedical research in order to assess their implications for liability and proof. Focusing on peer review and publication, along with reforms promoted by the editors of some of the world's pre-eminent general (...) medical journals (e.g. British Medical Journal, the Lancet, Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine), this article considers how judges might respond to recent findings which suggest that corporate sponsorship systematically biases biomedical research. Given that common law judges have been reforming rules of evidence and procedure in search of impartial expertise and privileging published biomedical research, how should they respond to the strategic manipulation of the scientific record? (shrink)

Aims: The Research Diagnostic Criteria for Temporomandi¬bular Disorders (RDC/TMD) Axis I diagnostic algorithms were demonstrated to be reliable but below target sensitivity and specificity. Empirical data supported Axis I algorithm revisions that were valid. Axis II instruments were shown to be both reliable and valid. An international consensus workshop was convened to obtain recommendations and finalization of new Axis I diagnostic algorithms and new Axis II instruments. Methods: A comprehensive search of published TMD diagnostic literature was followed by review and (...) consensus via a formal structured process by a panel of experts for revision of the RDC/TMD. Results: The recommended Diagnostic Criteria for TMD (DC/TMD) Axis I protocol includes both a valid screener for pain diagnoses and valid criteria for the most common pain-related TMDs and for one intra-articular disorder. The Axis II protocol retains selected RDC/TMD screening instruments augmented with new instruments to better assess the interactions between pain and psychosocial functioning. A comprehensive classification system is also presented. Conclusion: The recommended evidence-based DC/TMD protocol is appropriate for use in both the clinical and research settings. Simple Axis I and II screening tests augmented by validated Axis I and Axis II instruments allow for identification of simple to complex TMD patients. (shrink)

From an Indirect Realist point of view, the Knowledge Argument in the philosophy of perception has been misdirected by its very title. If it can be argued that sense-fields are at their basis no more than evidence, indeed, a part of existence as brute as what is usually termed the 'external', then, if 'knowing' is not essential to sensing, that argument has to be radically reconstructed. Resistance to there being an non-epistemic or 'raw feel' basis for sensing is very fashionable (...) at the moment (e.g. in Davidson, McDowell, Harman), but the present article aims at breaking through it. Scientific facts are adduced to show that sensing can exist without perceiving. It is argued that the part played by motivation in the gathering of knowledge in a feedback system, enhanced by intersubjective linguistic correction in the human case, allows for a ready evolutionary adaptation. One can advance from this to a fresh view of knowledge and rationality which see them at base as part of a folk-psychological method of allowing for continuing disambiguation of what are identified within that method as 'entities' and 'properties'. (shrink)

The central topic for this book is the ethics of treating individuals as though they are members of groups. The book raises many interesting questions, including: Why do we feel so much more strongly about discrimination on certain grounds – e.g. of race and sex - than discrimination on other grounds? Are we right to think that discrimination based on these characteristics is especially invidious? What should we think about ‘rational discrimination’ – ‘discrimination’ which is based on sound statistics? To (...) take just one of dozens of examples from the book. Suppose a landlord turns away a prospective tenant, because this prospective tenant is of a particular ethnicity – arguing that statistics show that one in four of this group have been shown in the past to default on their rent. That seems clearly unfair to people of this ethnicity. But we are routinely being judged in this way – not just on the basis of our ethnicity, but assumptions are made about us and decisions taken about us based on our gender, religion, job, post-code, hobbies, blood-group, nationality, etc. Now suppose that another landlord turns away a convicted criminal, arguing that one in four of convicted criminals have been shown to be unreliable rent payers. Is our intuition the same as before? Should it be? This book is suitable for all students of philosophy, especially those with an interest in applied ethics. (shrink)

We consider here issues of open access to social simulations, with a particular focus on software licences, though also briefly discussing documentation and archiving. Without any specific software licence, the default arrangements are stipulated by the Berne Convention (for those countries adopting it), and are unsuitable for software to be used as part of the scientific process (i.e. simulation software used to generate conclusions that are to be considered part of the scientific domain of discourse). Without stipulating any specific software (...) licence, we suggest rights that should be provided by any candidate licence for social simulation software, and provide in an appendix an evaluation of some popularly used licences against these criteria. (shrink)

Farm animal welfare is a knowledge domain that can be regarded as a model for new ways of organizing learning and making higher education more responsive to the needs of society. Global concern for animal welfare has resulted in a great demand for knowledge. As a complement to traditional education in farm animal welfare, higher education can be more demand driven and look at a broad range of methods to make knowledge available. The result of an inventory on farm animal (...) welfare, e-learning, learning resources, and open educational resources in three different search engines is presented. A huge amount of information on animal welfare is available on the Internet but many of the providers lock in the knowledge in a traditional course context. Only a few universities develop and disseminate open learning resources within the subject. Higher education institutions are encouraged to develop open educational resources in animal welfare for the benefit of teachers, students, society, and, indirectly, animal welfare. (shrink)

Prior theory – that is theorising on the basis of thought and intuition , as opposed to attempting to explain observed data – inevitably distorts what comes after. It biases us in the selection of our data (the data model) and certainly biases any theorising that follows. It does this because we (as humans) can not help but see the world through our theorising – we are blind without the theoretical “spectacles” described by Kuhn (1962). If a theory has shown (...) to be essentially correct in some domain (i.e. by thorough validation against the target problem or domain) using it as a framework can be helpful, however, if the theory is not mature or even speculative then it can effectively prevent progress . I argue that, although we can not ever completely avoid this sort of bias, we can minimise its effect. Two sources of prior theorising coming from opposite directions are sociology and formal systems – neither of these is inherently biased towards prior theorising, but just happens to be a source for such theorising at the present time. Computer scientists who project the results of interesting models onto society are also guilty of constructing first and fitting later. (shrink)

Theophrasti Characteres recensuit Hermannus Diels. Oxford Classical Texts. 1909. 3s. 6d. net. Pp. xxviii + .Θεοφρστου Xαρακτxs22EFρες. The Characters of Theophrastus. An English Translation from a Revised Text. With Introduction and Notes by R. C. Jebb, M.A. A new edition. Edited by J. E. Sandys, Litt.D. Macmillan. 1909. 7s. 6d. net. c. 23×14½. Pp. xvi+229.

Les droits de l'homme sont un ensemble normatif qui donne à tout être humain des droits universels et inaliénables, malgré les différences religieuse, raciale, ethnique ou nationale. Ces droits sont reconnus aux hommes au-delà des droits positifs des différents Etats. De manière fondamentale, ils sont une garantie contre l'exercice arbitraire du pouvoir. Ils sont la réaffirmation forte de l'égalité et de la liberté sans lesquelles on ne peut construire une société démocratique et forte. Malgré cette posture, les droits de l'homme (...) se retrouvent en quête de sens. Le présent ouvrage propose de voir les inflexions des droits de l'homme face au pouvoir des nouvelles puissances, face à la plénitude de l'Etat-nation de façon générale, mais principalement face à l'Etat-africain. Comment, à partir des critiques d'Edmond Burke, de Karl Marx et d'Hannah Arendt, penser la réalité des droits de l'homme? Quel commerce ces trois grands penseurs des droits de l'homme entretiennent-ils. [Source : 4e p. de couverture]. (shrink)

O lugar próprio no espaço impróprio: o negro, o judeu e o comum Resumo: No pós-guerra, uma série de intelectuais que residiam na França, alguns deles, como exilados ou expatriados, travaram um intenso debate a respeito das condições do negro e do judeu. Jean-Paul Sartre formulou uma das questões centrais desse debate: haveria uma essência da negritude ou do judaísmo? Para Frantz Fanon, Maurice Blanchot, Jacques Derrida e Edmond Jabès, a negritude e o judaísmo podem ser compreendidos a partir (...) das experiências do exílio e da expatriação. Esse artigo pretende reconstruir esse debate e analisar a importância do não-pertencimento para as concepções de comunidade e comum desenvolvidas por Jean-Luc Nancy, Giorgio Agamben e Jacques Rancière. Palavras-chave: Negro. Judeu. Expatriação. Não-pertencimento. Comum. El lugar propio en el espacio impropio: el negro, el judío y el común Resumen: En la pos-guerra, una serie de intelectuales que vivían en Francia, algunos de ellos, como exilados o expatriados, trabaran un intenso debate a respecto de las condiciones del negro y del judío. Jean-Paul Sartre formuló una de las preguntas centrales de ese debate: ¿habría una esencia da negritud o de judaísmo? Para Frantz Fanon, Maurice Blanchot, Jacques Derrida y Edmond Jabès, la negritud y el judaísmo pueden ser comprendidos a partir de las experiencias de exilio y de la expatriación. Ese artículo pretende reconstruir ese debate y analizar la importancia del no-pertenencia a las conceptos de comunidad y común desarrolladas por Jean-Luc Nancy, Giorgio Agamben y Jacques Rancière. Palabras-clave: Negro. Judío. Expatriación. No-pertenencia. Común. The proper place in the improper space: the black, the jewish and the common: In the postwar period, a number of intellectuals residing in France, some of them as exiles or expats, the intellectuals engaged in an intense debate about the conditions of the black and the jewish. Jean-Paul Sartre formulated one of the key questions of this debate: Is there an essence of blackness or judaism? For Frantz Fanon, Maurice Blanchot, Jacques Derrida, and Edmond Jabès, blackness and judaism can be understood from the experiences of exile and expatriation. This article aims to reconstruct this debate and analyze the importance of non-belonging to the conceptions of community and common developed by Jean-Luc Nancy, Giorgio Agamben, and Jacques Rancière. Keywords: Black. Jewish. Expatriation. Non-belonging. Common. Data de registro: 11/12/2019 Data de aceite: 26/08/2020. (shrink)

In 1736, an 80-year-old Edmond Halley, dignified by the academic robes of his alma mater, Queens College Oxford, sat down at the brush of transplanted Swedish artist Michael Dahl for his final official portrait.1 By the time he posed for Dahl, Halley occupied a rank of distinction among practical philosophers of the early Enlightenment. His manifold achievements included authorship of the first catalogue of stars in the Michael Dahl, “Dr E Halley, Aged 80.” © The Royal Society. southern hemisphere, (...) the laying of actuarial foundations for life insurance and annuities, his correct prediction of the return in 1758, 1835, and 1910 of a bright periodic comet that today bears .. (shrink)

Der Berg, a poem written between 1906 and 1907, is perhaps one of the most emblematic places to approach the relationship between Rainer Maria Rilke and the East. The mountain we are speaking of is Fujiyama, to which the celebrated Japanese painter Katsushika Hokusai dedicated two woodcut cycles. Presumably, Rilke came into contact with Japanese art through Edmond Goncourt, who had devoted precisely to Hokusai a major critical study in 1908. Another version of the story sees Rilke as having (...) read the monograph on Hokusai by Friedrich Perzynski, published in 1904 in the same series where Rilke’s Worpswede was issued. But let us read the text first:On several occasions, the artist tried to capture the.. (shrink)

A French philosopher specializing in logic, E. Goblot is especially remembered today for his book, La Barrière et le Niveau, which, because it lays the groundwork for a theory of social distinction, has become a classic of sociology. Generally presented as a simple precursor which merely anticipates the more noteworthy work of P. Bourdieu, La Barrière et le Niveau is in fact a work mobilizing arguments which tap into the reality of a social class, the bourgeoisie, with which E. Goblot (...) is intimately familiar. By adopting a critical and reflexive posture, it is possible to appreciate the extent to which E. Goblot’s familial and professional experience contributed to framing the issues and the theses which he would develop regarding the French bourgeoisie’s social-distinction strategies in the fields of education, sociability, and morality. (shrink)

On Thursday, August 21, 1862, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt registered in their Journal a short entry on the nature of life: “Qu’est-ce que la vie? L’usufruit d’une agrégation de molecules”—What is life? The usufruct of an aggregation of molecules. Although the extraordinary chronicles of the social and cultural life of the Second French Empire written by the Goncourt brothers includes names of their most distinguished contemporaries, the writers, artists, politicians and socialites they befriended outnumber by far the scientists. (...) It is almost certain that they were never close to Felix Dujardin, a distinguished microbiologist and member of the French Academy of Sciences. In 1835, Dujardin had started crushing ciliates under the microscope and observed that the tiny cells exuded a jellylike substance, which he described as a “gelée vivante” and was eventually named “protoplasm” by Johann E. Purkinje and Hugo von Mohl. The small note written by the Goncourts in their journal is an indica. (shrink)

1. ptie. L'inspiration sociale; les sources éternelles de l'art.--2. ptie. La technique personnelle: L'Allemagne du Clair de lune. Beethoven: la joie dans la douleur. Les sources de la sensibilité romantique chez Schumann et Gabriel Fauré. Les vraies sources du génie de Wagner. Émile Verhaeren. La poésie de mme. de Noailles. Balzac: La comédie humaine. Le théâtre de Théodore de Banville. L'œuvre d'Edmond Rostand.

How Wittgenstein's theories have been bent, transformed, and expanded in the world outside philosophy. The expression of his eyes remained the same, a cold, piercing sadness. Yet his final words were "Tell them I had a happy life." This poetic book examines the way Ludwig Wittgenstein has influenced artists of the word beyond his own field, thereby touching the subject of how philosophy can be relevant at large. By studying the ways Wittgenstein's theories have been bent, transformed, and expanded, David (...) Rothenberg shows that responses to the reading of philosophy can take many deep, reflective, and different forms. Aphoristically constructed in the style of E. M. Cioran or Edmond Jabès, carefully illustrated with paintings and drawings by Doug Hall, Leif Haglund, and Debra Pughe, The Possibility of Reddish Green situates Wittgenstein in the age of the sound bite and the artistic fragment, promoting the aesthetic of detachment and yet seeking to find a route through the sea of disconnected, jumbled ideas and changes that mark our time. (shrink)

El propósito de este texto es ofrecer una visión general de la relación entre nación e historia en los debates que se generaron por parte de los historiadores y otros intelectuales de las ciencias sociales a finales del siglo XIX y durante gran parte del siglo XX. La reflexión central que se plantea consiste entonces en estudiar y mostrar cómo al mismo tiempo que las naciones modernas eran objeto de un proceso de redefinición política, en el escenario intelectual de las (...) ciencias sociales, y en particular de los historiadores, fueron apareciendo también un conjunto de debates y obras que intentaban problematizar y someter a consideración las relaciones que pretendían establecerse entre la nación y la historia como un elemento que las justificaba. (shrink)