ABSTRACT Clear guidelines addressing the ethically appropriate use of anti‐infectives in the setting of hospice care do not exist. There is lack of understanding about key treatment decisions related to infection treatment for patients who are eligible for hospice care. Ethical concerns about anti‐infective use at the end of life include: (1) delaying transition to hospice, (2) prolonging a dying process, (3) prescribing regimens incongruent with a short life expectancy and goals of care, (4) increasing the reservoir of potential resistant (...) pathogens, (5) placing unreasonable costs on a capitated hospice system. Although anti‐infectives are thought to be relatively safe, they can place a burden on patients and be inconsistent to particular care plans. The current complex, and at times fragmented, medical care often fails to address these issues in decision‐making. In many ways, the ethics governing the end of life decisions related to dialysis, hydration/nutrition, and hypercalcemia parallel those of anti‐infectives. In this article we articulate important elements in ethical decision‐making in the application of anti‐infectives for patients who are eligible for hospice care, and we point to the need for prospective studies to help refine particular guidelines in these cases. (shrink)

Based on the proceedings of a 1985 conference held in the U.K., this volume embraces most of the important concerns in AI today, emphasizing common techniques and methodologies rather than applications. Topics covered include building efficient computational logic, planning and design, the representation of uncertain knowledge, user modelling, and psychological and philosophical issues. Papers on perception, theorem proving, expert systems, robotics, and data bases are also included. Each section is preceded by an introduction which draws comparisons between various papers.

Clear guidelines addressing the ethically appropriate use of anti-infectives in the setting of hospice care do not exist. There is lack of understanding about key treatment decisions related to infection treatment for patients who are eligible for hospice care. Ethical concerns about anti-infective use at the end of life include: (1) delaying transition to hospice, (2) prolonging a dying process, (3) prescribing regimens incongruent with a short life expectancy and goals of care, (4) increasing the reservoir of potential resistant pathogens, (...) (5) placing unreasonable costs on a capitated hospice system. Although anti-infectives are thought to be relatively safe, they can place a burden on patients and be inconsistent to particular care plans. The current complex, and at times fragmented, medical care often fails to address these issues in decision-making. In many ways, the ethics governing the end of life decisions related to dialysis, hydration/nutrition, and hypercalcemia parallel those of anti-infectives. In this article we articulate important elements in ethical decision-making in the application of anti-infectives for patients who are eligible for hospice care, and we point to the need for prospective studies to help refine particular guidelines in these cases. (shrink)

Technological innovations such as next generation sequencing and DNA hybridisation enrichment have resulted in multi‐fold increases in both the quantity of ancient DNA sequence data and the time depth for DNA retrieval. To date, over 30 ancient genomes have been sequenced, moving from 0.7× coverage (mammoth) in 2008 to more than 50× coverage (Neanderthal) in 2014. Studies of rapid evolutionary changes, such as the evolution and spread of pathogens and the genetic responses of hosts, or the genetics of domestication and (...) climatic adaptation, are developing swiftly and the importance of palaeogenomics for investigating evolutionary processes during the last million years is likely to increase considerably. However, these new datasets require new methods of data processing and analysis, as well as conceptual changes in interpreting the results. In this review we highlight important areas of future technical and conceptual progress and discuss research topics in the rapidly growing field of palaeogenomics. -/- . (shrink)

James Bryson’s The Christian Platonism of Thomas Jackson offers the first comprehensive study of the Oxford Platonist Thomas Jackson. While Jackson is by no means unknown to early modern historians...

In recent years evidence has emerged of the considerable influence of Scotist metaphysics on the Reformed scholasticism of the seventeenth century. One of the figures often named in connection with this Scotist revival is Samuel Rutherford (1600–61), who was one of the most important Scottish theologians of the seventeenth century. Focussing on Rutherford’s maximalist doctrine of providence, this article demonstrates his profound debt to key Scotist philosophical devices. In structuring these concepts, however, it is demonstrated that Rutherford is influenced not (...) so much by Scotus directly but rather much more by the modified Scotism of Thomas Bradwardine, the fourteenth-century Augustinian theologian. In particular, Bradwardine is revealed as the key influence on Rutherford’s modal theory and his sophisticated account of divine concourse. The paper concludes by arguing that Bradwardine’s influence on Rutherford suggests the need to take a broader view of the late medieval influence on Reformed scholasticism than is currently the case. (shrink)

Although the great majority of genes are not subject to cell‐cycle controls, those that are could play a very important role in regulation of the cell cycle itself. The tubulin and histone genes of the naturally synchronous myxomycete, Physarum polycephalum, provide an excellent paradigm for such regulation. The transcription of both is highly periodic within the Physarum cycle, and curiously, both sets of genes appear to be activated at the same time. This activation appears to function as part of a (...) developmental program, since it serves to meet future needs for each gene's product. The significance of this activation event for cell‐cycle regulation is discussed with particular regard to the nature of the mitotic oscillator. (shrink)

The article concerns the topic of religion in Thomas Hobbes' view of man.

Market participants continue to demand greater transparency from boards of directors, yet little is known about the effect of increased transparency on director decisions. Using a sample of practicing board members, our first experiment provides evidence that increased transparency via disclosure may license directors to make more biased decisions. Guided by rich insights provided by these directors, we examine whether considering a company’s ethical values can deter disclosure-induced licensing by activating a morality mindset. In two additional experiments, we find that (...) exposure to a code of conduct that includes an ethics component does not mitigate the licensing effects we observed; however, considering a separate, concise ethics statement does mitigate these effects. Our findings highlight important differences between the code of conduct and ethics statement for decision-making which can help organizations to mitigate adverse effects of disclosure. Implications for users of financial information and regulators are also discussed. (shrink)

When an individual facing intractable pain is given an estimate of a few months to live, does hastening death become a viable and legitimate alternative for willing patients? Has the time come for physicians to do away with the traditional notion of healthcare as maintaining or improving physical and mental health, and instead accept their own limitations by facilitating death when requested? The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge held the 2013 Varsity Medical Debate on the motion “This House Would Legalise (...) Assisted Dying”. This article summarises the key arguments developed over the course of the debate. We will explore how assisted dying can affect both the patient and doctor; the nature of consent and limits of autonomy; the effects on society; the viability of a proposed model; and, perhaps most importantly, the potential need for the practice within our current medico-legal framework. (shrink)

Men often make riskier decisions than women across a wide range of real-life behaviors. Whether this sex difference is accentuated, diminished, or stable under stressful conditions is, however, contested in the scientific literature. A critical blind spot lies amid this contestation: Most studies use standardized, laboratory-based, cognitive measures of decision making rather than complex real-life social simulation tasks to assess risk-related behavior. To address this blind spot, we investigated the effects of acute psychosocial stress on risk decision making in men (...) and women using a standardized cognitive measure and a novel task that simulated a real-life social situation. Participants were exposed to either an acute psychosocial stressor or an equivalent control condition. Stressor-exposed participants were further characterized as high- or low-cortisol responders. Results confirmed that the experimental manipulation was effective. On the IGT, participants characterized as low-cortisol responders made significantly riskier decisions than those characterized as high-cortisol responders. Similarly, in the online chatroom, participants characterized as low-cortisol responders were, relative to those in the Non-Stress group, significantly more likely to make risky decisions. Together, these results suggest that at lower levels of cortisol both men and women tend to make riskier decisions in both economic and social spheres. (shrink)

There are wide individual differences in the ability to detect a stimulus contingency embedded in a complex paradigm. The present study used a cognitive masking paradigm to better understand individual differences related to contingency learning. Participants were assessed on measures of electrodermal arousal and on working memory capacity before engaging in the contingency learning task. Contingency awareness was assessed both by trial-by-trial verbal reports obtained during the task and by a short post-task recognition questionnaire. Participants who became aware had fewer (...) non-specific skin conductance responses and tended to score higher on a digit span assessment. Skin conductance level was not significantly lower in the aware group than in the unaware group. These findings are consistent with studies showing that lower arousal and greater cognitive processing capacity facilitate conscious perception of a greater breadth of information within a scene or a task. (shrink)

Glover proposes a planning–control model for the parietal lobe that contrasts with previous formulations that suggest independent mechanisms for perception and action. The planning–control model potentially solves practical functional problems with a proposed independence of perception and action, and offers some new directions for a study of human performance.

We use a result due to Rolin, Speissegger, and Wilkie to show that definable sets in certain o-minimal structures admit definable parameterizations by mild maps. We then use this parameterization to prove a result on the density of rational points on curves defined by restricted Pfaffian functions.

Ecological developmental biology (eco‐devo) explores the mechanistic relationships between the processes of individual development and environmental factors. Recent studies imply that some of these relationships have deep evolutionary origins, and may even pre‐date the divergences of the simplest extant animals, including cnidarians and sponges. Development of these early diverging metazoans is often sensitive to environmental factors, and these interactions occur in the context of conserved signaling pathways and mechanisms of tissue homeostasis whose detailed molecular logic remain elusive. Efficient methods for (...) transgenesis in cnidarians together with the ease of experimental manipulation in cnidarians and sponges make them ideal models for understanding causal relationships between environmental factors and developmental mechanisms. Here, we identify major questions at the interface between animal evolution and development and outline a road map for research aimed at identifying the mechanisms that link environmental factors to developmental mechanisms in early diverging metazoans.Also watch the Video Abstract. (shrink)