Background: The use of race as a category in medical research is the focus of an intense debate, complicated by the inconsistency of presumed independent variables, race and ethnicity, on which analysis depends. Interpretation is made difficult by inconsistent methods for determining the race or ethnicity of a participant. The failure to specify how race or ethnicity was determined is common in the published literature.Hypothesis: Criteria by which they assign a research participant to racial or ethnic categories are not reported (...) by published articles.Methods: Methods were reviewed for assigning race and ethnicity of research participants in 268 published reports reporting associations among race , health outcome and genotype.Results: Of the 268 published reports reviewed, it was found that 192 did not explain their methods for assigning race or ethnicity as an independent variable. This was despite the fact that 180 of those reports reached conclusions about associations among genetics, health outcome and race or ethnicity.Conclusions: More attention needs to be given to the definition of race and ethnicity in genetic studies, especially in those diseases where health disparities are known to exist. (shrink)

Background: Islam and Muslims are underrepresented in the medical literature and the influence of physician’s cultural beliefs and religious values upon the clinical encounter has been understudied. Objective: To elicit the perceived influence of Islam upon the practice patterns of immigrant Muslim physicians in the USA. Design: Ten face-to-face, in-depth, semistructured interviews with Muslim physicians from various backgrounds and specialties trained outside the USA and practising within the the country. Data were analysed according to the conventions of qualitative research using (...) a modified grounded-theory approach. Results: There were a variety of views on the role of Islam in medical practice. Several themes emerged from our interviews: (1) a trend to view Islam as enhancing virtuous professional behaviour; (2) the perception of Islam as influencing the scope of medical practice through setting boundaries on career choices, defining acceptable medical procedures and shaping social interactions with physician peers; (3) a perceived need for Islamic religious experts within Islamic medical ethical deliberation. Limitations: This is a pilot study intended to yield themes and hypotheses for further investigation and is not meant to fully characterise Muslim physicians at large. Conclusions: Immigrant Muslim physicians practising within the USA perceive Islam to play a variable role within their clinical practice, from influencing interpersonal relations and character development to affecting specialty choice and procedures performed. Areas of ethical challenges identified include catering to populations with lifestyles at odds with Islamic teachings, end-of-life care and maintaining a faith identity within the culture of medicine. Further study of the interplay between Islam and Muslim medical practice and the manner and degree to which Islamic values and law inform ethical decision-making is needed. (shrink)

The dominant approach to environmental policy endorsed by conservative and libertarian policy thinkers, so-called “free market environmentalism”, is grounded in the recognition and protection of property rights in environmental resources. Despite this normative commitment to property rights, most self-described FME advocates adopt a utilitarian, welfare-maximization approach to climate change policy, arguing that the costs of mitigation measures could outweigh the costs of climate change itself. Yet even if anthropogenic climate change is decidedly less than catastrophic, human-induced climate change is likely (...) to contribute to environmental changes that violate traditional conceptions of property rights. Viewed globally, the actions of some countries—primarily industrialized nations—are likely to increase environmental harms suffered by other countries—less developed nations that have not made any significant contribution to climate change. It may well be that aggregate human welfare would be maximized in a warmer, wealthier world, or that the gains from climate change will offset environmental losses. Yet such claims, even if demonstrated, would not address the normative concern that the consequences of anthropogenic global warming would infringe upon the rights of people in less-developed nations. As a consequence, this paper calls for a rethinking of FME approaches to climate change policy. (shrink)

Description: Ancient Indian logic by itself is a very vast subject. The ancient Sanskrit term nyaya which was first used in a different or in a much more general sense, was later specifically applied to the Nyaya school. The physics and physiology and psychology of the Nyaya doctrine are not specifically its own, being from the first indistinguishable from those of its sister Sastra, the Vaisesika. What characterizes it specifically is the development of the nyaya or five-membered method of demonstration (...) and its insistence on the four sources of knowledge, corresponding to the first four members of its demonstrative formula, or 'Syllogism.' The importance of Nyaya is in its doctrine of the pramanas, or sources of proof, and in its formulation of the nyaya, or method of demonstration. Indian Logic in its Early Schools by H.N. Randle is an interpretation of Indian logical theory in its historical development based on the study of original texts wherever reference to Nyaya as a method of logic has been made, and thus, covers a very wide field of Indian philosophy. An indispensable work for students of Indian philosophy, it is especially important for those who are interested in Nyayadarsana in its relation to the early logic of other schools. (shrink)

This paper studies general numerical networks with support and attack. Our starting point is argumentation networks with the Caminada labelling of three values 1=in, 0=out and ½=undecided. This is generalised to arbitrary values in [01], which enables us to compare with other numerical networks such as predator?prey ecological networks, flow networks, logical modal networks and more. This new point of view allows us to see the place of argumentation networks in the overall landscape of networks and import and export ideas (...) to and from argumentation networks. We make a special effort to make clear how general concepts in general networks relate to the special case of argumentation networks. We pay special attention to the handling of loops and to the special features of numerical support. We find surprising connections with the Dempster?Shafer rule and with the cross-ratio in projective geometry. This paper is an expansion of our 2005 paper and so we also consider higher level features such as numerical attacks on attacks, and propagation of numerical values.We conclude with a brief view of temporal numerical argumentation and with a detailed comparison with related papers published since 2005. (shrink)

We start this issue of Journal of Military Ethics with a recent address on military ethics given by one of the US ARMY's leading officers.Brigadier General H. R. McMaster graduated from the United...

The object of this article is to examine, with the work of Jeremy Bentham as the principal example, one strand in the complex pattern of European social theory during the second half of the eighteenth century. This was of course the period not only of the American and French revolutions, but of the culmination of the movements of thought constituting what we know as the Enlightenment. Like all great historical episodes, the Enlightenment was both the fulfilment of long-established processes and (...) the inauguration of new processes of which the fulfilment lay in the future. Thus the seminal ideas of seventeenth-century rationalism realized and perhaps exhausted their potentialities in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. The ideas with which this article is concerned, however—conveniently grouped and labelled as the ideas of utilitarianism—only began to achieve systematic development in these later decades of the eighteenth century. Within that period—during the first half and more of Bentham's long life—attempts to apply those ideas to the solution of social problems met largely with failure and frustration. Yet unrealized potentialities remained, the realization of which was reserved for a time when the world of the philosophes no longer existed. The movements for social and political reform which have played so large a part in modern history since the French Revolution may be judged in widely differing ways; but whatever the verdict, these movements surely cannot be understood without due consideration of that part of their origins which lies in eighteenth-century utilitarianism. (shrink)

By the death, last summer, of Jack Robson, the world of utilitarian studies and a wider world of scholarship on both sides of the Atlantic lost one of their most distinguished figures. It would not be appropriate here, even if it were possible now, to attempt a full and measured assessment of his work. Writing only a few months after the news of his death, while the sense of loss is still so sharp for all his many friends, two things (...) are possible. Something can and should be said to acknowledge and celebrate Robson's achievement as a scholar; and to this can be added some personal recollections of one whose human qualities were as outstanding as his scholarship. (shrink)

In studying the thinkers discussed, we have generally used (translations of) their writings. The very breadth of this study makes one dependent upon ...

I start with two contradictory statements: Jaeger, Aristotle, p. 330: ‘Thus all indications point to a late date for the origin of the philosopher's zoological works.’ D'Arcy Thompson, Historia Animalium, Prefatory Note: ‘It can be shown that Aristotle's natural history studies were carried on, or mainly carried on, in his middle age, between his two periods of residence at Athens.‘.

Cultural boundaries in Islam based on Hadith (Islamic traditions).

SUFFERING HUMAN AND DIVINE INTRODUCTION I KNEW when I asked Dr. H. Wheeler Robinson to write this volume on Suffering that I was giving him the most difficult ...

Methoden. Im obigen Artikel ist die „Phylogenie des Stammbaumes” untersucht worden. Beginnend mitHaeckel werden 26 Typen phylogenetischer Symbole kritisch besprochen, d.h. nicht die Resultate, sondern nur die Methoden, z.B. bezüglich Systematik und Phylogenie, lebender und ausgestorbener Organismen, geologischer Perioden, Stufen und homologer Variationen, geographischer Verbreitung, Diversität, etwaiger Bedeutung der Einzelheiten, Mono-, Bi- und Polyrheithrie , usw. Der Faktor Zeit wird dabei für phylogenetische Systeme als der wesentlichste betrachtet. Der Autor hat daher in seinen- neuen Darstellungen die Begriffe „Zeit-Stufen” oder „Zeit-Globen-Oberflächen” (...) eingeführt; diese stehen senkrecht zum „Zeit-Radius”. Auf diesem Grunde wird ein neues Kriterium zur Unterscheidung systematischer und phylogenetischer Vorstellungen denjenigen anderer Autoren hinzugefügt. Erläuterungen. Nach einer Übersicht über die besprochenen Schemen im 1. Teil werden die Verhältnisse zwischen systematischen und phylogenetischen Darstellungen sowie die Verbindung ihrer Symbole untersucht. Es wird gezeigt, dass viele Einzelheiten solcher Konstruktionen oft, wissentlich oder unwissentlich, keine bestimmte Bedeutung haben. Der Verfasser hat versucht zu zeigen, dass es erwünscht wäre, möglichst mit allen Einzelheiten einer symbolischen Darstellung irgendeine Bedeutung zu verbinden: Linien und Entfernungen in der Ebene, Winkel in räumlichen Schemen. Die letztgenannten werden besonders für solche Arten von phylogenetischen Systemen empfohlen, bei denen der Faktor Zeit stets eine der Dimensionen bildet. Dieser Grundsatz wird mit der Evolution systematischer Einzelheiten in Verbindung gebracht, und Merkmals-Phyletik, homologe Variationen, Stufen, Polyrheithrie, Analogie und Homologie, Konvergenz und Verwandtschaft, etc. werden kurz im Lichte der Vererbungslehre besprochen. Es istHayata's extrem dynamischen Ansichten zu verdanken, dass das Statische in den systematischen und phylogenetischen Darstellungen aufgelockert worden ist. Méthodes. Dans l'article inséré ci-dessus il s'agit de ce qu'on pourrait appeler „la phylogénie de l'arbre généalogique”. En commençant parHaeckel , l'auteur discute 26 types divers de symboles phylogénétiques, c.à.d. seulement les méthodes , par exemple en ce qui concerne la taxonomie et la phylogénie, les organismes récents et éteints, les périodes géologiques, les niveaux et les variations homologues, la distribution géographique, la diversité, la signification éventuelle des détails, la mono-, bi- et polyrheithrie , etc. Le Temps est considéré comme l'élément le plus essentiel dans tout système phylogénétique. Par conséquence, l'auteur a introduit dans ses nouvelles représentations les idées de „Niveaux” ou de „Surfaces des Sphères du Temps” qui sont imaginés perpendiculaires au Radius-Temps. Dans l'ordre de ces idées un nouveau critère est ajouté à ceux donnés par d'autres auteurs pour la distinction des systèmes taxonomiques et des représentations phylogénétiques. Justifications. Après une récapitulation des systèmes, énumérés dans la première partie, les relations des constructions taxonomiques et phylogénétiques, ainsi que les connections de leurs symboles sont discutées. Souvent plusieurs détails sont, sciemment ou insciemment, dépourvus de toutes signification. L'auteur a essayé de démontrer qu'il serait désirable d'attribuer autant que possible de significations définies au détails d'une représentation symbolique de la nature décrite: aux lignes et aux distances dans le plan, aux angles dans l'espace. Les constructions tridimensionales sont particulièrement recommandées pour plusieurs systèmes phylogénétiques; dans de tels systèmes le Temps devrait toujours remplir la fonction d'une des dimensions. Ce principe est mis en rapport avec l'évolution des unités taxonomiques; phylogénie des charactères, variations homologues, niveaux, polyrheithrie, analogie et homologie, convergence et relations héréditaires, tous ces sujets sont brièvement discutés dans leurs rapports avec la Génétique. Selon l'opinion de l'auteur, c'est aux idées ultra-dynamiques d'Hayata que la taxonomie et la phylogénie doivent la pénétration féconde du dynamisme dans leurs systèmes trop souvent statiques. (shrink)