Continuing rapid developments in the life sciences offer the promise of providing tools to meet global challenges in health, agriculture, the environment, and economic development; some of the benefits are already being realized. However, such advances also bring with them new social, ethical, legal, and security challenges. Governance questions form an increasingly important part of the discussions about these advances--whether the particular issue under debate is the development of ethical principles for human genome editing, how to establish regulatory systems for (...) the safe conduct of field trials of gene drive-modified organisms, or many others. However there are continuing concerns that the knowledge, tools, and techniques resulting from life sciences research could also enable the development of bioweapons or facilitate bioterrorism. Between June 10 and 13, 2018, more than 70 participants from 30 different countries and 5 international organizations took part in an international workshop, The Governance of Dual Use Research in the Life Sciences: Advancing Global Consensus on Research Oversight, in Zagreb, Croatia. Hosted by the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the workshop was a collaboration among the InterAcademy Partnership, the Croatian Academy, the Croatian Society for Biosafety and Biosecurity, and the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop."--Publisher's description. (shrink)

This paper shows that the semantics of shenme ‘what’ in Chinese bare conditionals may exhibit a phenomenon of double quantification. I argue that such double quantification can be nicely accounted for if one adopts Carlson's (1977a, b) semantics of bare plurals and verb meanings as well as the following two assumptions: (i) shenme ‘what’ can be a proform of bare NPs and hence has the same kind of denotation as bare NPs, and (ii) Chinese bare NPs are names of kinds (...) of things. This analysis of Chinese bare conditionals lends support to Carlson's approach to bare plurals despite Wilkinson's (1991) criticisms. I also show that an extension of Heim's (1987) analysis of what as ‘something of kind x’ to Chinese shenme ‘what’ encounters problems when shenme ‘what’ is a shared constituent of a predicate which applies to kinds and another predicate which applies to objects. (shrink)

BackgroundThe interRAI 0–3 Early Years was recently developed to support intervention efforts based on the needs of young children and their families. One aspect of child development assessed by the Early Years instrument are motor skills, which are integral for the maturity of cognition, language, social-emotional and other developmental outcomes. Gross motor development, however, is negatively impacted by pre-term birth and low birth weight. For the purpose of known-groups validation, an at-risk sample of preterm children using the interRAI 0–3 Early (...) Years was included to examine correlates of preterm risk and the degree of gross motor delay.MethodsParticipant data included children and families from 17 health agencies in Ontario, Canada. Data were collected as part of a pilot study using the full interRAI 0–3 Early Years assessment. Correlational analyses were used to determine relationships between prenatal risk and preterm birth and bivariate analyses examined successful and failed performance of at-risk children on gross motor items. A Kruskal-Wallis test was used to determine the mean difference in gross motor scores for children born at various weeks gestation.ResultsCorrelational analysis indicated that prenatal and perinatal factors such as maternal nicotine use during pregnancy did not have significant influence over gross motor achievement for the full sample, however, gross motor scores were lower for children born pre-term or low birth weight based on bivariate analysis. Gross motor scores decreased from 40 weeks’ gestation, to moderate to late preterm, and to very preterm, however extremely preterm performed comparably to very preterm.InterpretationThe interRAI 0–3 was evaluated to determine its efficacy and report findings which confirm the literature regarding delay in gross motor performance for preterm children. Findings confirm that pre-term and low birth weight children are at greater risk for motor delay via the interRAI 0–3 Early Years gross motor domain. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn everyday situations, people regularly receive information from large groups of people and from single experts. Although lay opinions and expert opinions have been studied extensively in isolation, the present study examined the relationship between the two by asking how many laypeople are needed to counter an expert opinion. A Bayesian formalisation allowed the prescription of this quantity. Participants were subsequently asked to assess how many laypeople are needed in different situations. The results demonstrate that people are sensitive to the (...) relevant factors identified for determining how many lay opinions are required to counteract a single expert opinion. People's assessments were fairly good in line with Bayesian predictions. (shrink)

Christianity during Portuguese era in Kerala, India.

Background: Pre-licensure ethics nursing education does not adequately prepare and instill confidence in nurses to address ethical issues, and yet ethics education provides nurses with greater confidence to take moral action, which can mitigate the negative effects of moral distress. Objectives: To assess the feasibility and acceptability of a nursing ethics education program that included simulated case-based ethics competencies as a form of evaluation. The program aimed at building nurses’ ethical knowledge and confidence to respond to ethical challenges in practice. (...) Research design: A prospective, longitudinal, correlational, single-cohort feasibility study using an investigator-developed survey and intervention field data. Participants and research context: Registered nurses were recruited from an academic quaternary-care medical center and 9 small- to mid-sized regional hospitals within one health system in the Midwest United States. Ethical considerations: IRB approval was obtained. Participants could complete the educational program regardless of research process participation. Findings: Of 20 participants, 19 (95%) provided post-program surveys and 18 completed competencies. Median (IQR) scores with quartiles for scheduling, timing, and length of sessions were all 10.0 [9.0, 10.0], and participants perceived that the content was interesting, increased knowledge and confidence in ethics, increased skills in providing ethical care, and would recommend the program to colleagues. Of factors, an increase in ethics knowledge had the highest “always agree” (17, 89.5%) response. Most participants reported that ethics competencies were appropriate 9.0 [9.0, 10.0] and sufficiently challenging 10.0 [9.0, 10.0]. Discussion: The education program developed nurses’ ethics knowledge and confidence. The single-cohort feasibility design provided early-stage intervention outcomes; however, a larger randomized controlled trial would substantiate program value. Conclusion: This novel ethics education program was highly feasible and acceptable to hospital-based nurses who reported increased knowledge and confidence in providing ethical care. Simulated case-based ethics competencies were an appropriate evaluation method. (shrink)

L’article évoque les interrogations nouvelles autour de la responsabilité dans le domaine médical. Le caractère intolérable de la fragilité, le mouvement de médicalisation, l’individualisation de la perception des risques, l’évolution de la relation médecin-malade, etc., ont grandement complexifié la prise de décision et l’évaluation éthique en médecine et, plus largement, dans les questions relatives à la santé. L’Église catholique, comme toutes les institutions touchant de près ou de loin à la santé, ne manque pas d’être interrogée. La réflexion voudrait le (...) montrer à partir de l’épidémie de sida. Finalement, la responsabilité moderne ne se meut-elle pas nécessairement dans l’ambiguïté ? (shrink)

Background People who are at elevated risk of suicide stand to benefit from internet-based interventions; however, research in this area is likely impacted by a range of ethical and practical challenges. The aim of this study was to examine the ethical issues and practical barriers associated with clinical studies of internet-based interventions for suicide prevention. Method This was a mixed-methods study involving two phases. First, a systematic search was conducted to identify studies evaluating internet-based interventions for people at risk of (...) suicide, and information pertaining to safety protocols and exclusion criteria was extracted. Second, investigators on the included studies were invited to complete an online survey comprising open-ended and forced-choice responses. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used to analyse the data. Results The literature search identified 18 eligible studies, of which three excluded participants based on severity of suicide risk. Half of the 15 suicide researchers who participated in the survey had experienced problems obtaining ethics approval, and none had encountered adverse events attributed to their intervention. Survey respondents noted the difficulty of managing risk in online environments and the limitations associated with implementing safety protocols, although some also reported increased confidence resulting from the ethical review process. Respondents recommended researchers pursue a collaborative relationship with their research ethics committees. Conclusion There is a balance to be achieved between the need to minimise the risk of adverse events whilst also ensuring interventions are being validated on populations who may be most likely to use and benefit from them. Further research is required to obtain the views of research ethics committees and research participants on these issues. Dialogue between researchers and ethics committees is necessary to address the need to ensure safety while also advancing the timely development of effective interventions in this critical area. (shrink)

The target article by Locke & Bogin (L&B) focuses on the evolution of language as a communicative tool. They neglect, however, that from infancy onwards humans have the ability to go beyond successful behaviour and to reflect upon language (and other domains of knowledge) as a problem space in its own right. This ability is not found in other species and may well be what makes humans unique.

Dans sa Somme, art. 34, Henri de Gand se penche sur les questions se rapportant à la vérité en Dieu . Il n’y a pas tant d’auteurs qui se sont donné la peine d’étudier ce problème à fond, nous fait-il remarquer1 — bien à tort, d’après lui. Car trois problèmes fondamentaux concernant la vérité se superposent: celui de la localisation, celui de la définition classique et celui de l’essence de la vérité.

The present study investigated whether individual differences between psychologists in thinking styles are associated with accuracy in diagnostic classification. We asked novice and experienced clinicians to classify two clinical cases of clients with two co-occurring psychological disorders. No significant difference in diagnostic accuracy was found between the two groups, but when combining the data from novices and experienced psychologists accuracy was found to be negatively associated with certain decision making strategies and with a higher self-assessed ability and preference for a (...) rational thinking style. Our results underscore the idea that it might be fruitful to look for explanations of differences in the accuracy of diagnostic judgments in individual differences between psychologists (such as in thinking styles or decision making strategies used), rather than in experience level. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Historical Representation and the Nation-State in Romantic Belgium (1830–1850)Jo TollebeekThe transformation of the Ancien Régime society of estates into the modern state system as it exists in Europe today was concluded during the “long nineteenth century.” This process of transformation came about in two waves. In a first wave—during the decades preceding and following the French Revolution, roughly the years 1780-1848—the framework for the nation-state was created. It was (...) mainly the liberal bourgeoisie which stood at the forefront. After the Congress of Vienna, where the “ante bellum” situation had been restored, it led more or less successful national revolutions in Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, and Poland. In a second wave, starting with the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and ending with the First World War, the framework of the nation-state was filled in. In those years a growing number of social groups found accommodation in the liberal house, which they also managed thoroughly to rebuild. This period can be described as the phase of integrated nationalism.Together with the nation-state came the rise of modern national his-toriography. The most well-known exponents of this typically nineteenth-century genre were the monumental outlines of national pasts which started appearing from 1890 onward. Karl Lamprecht in Germany (Deutsche Geschichte, 1890–1909), Pieter Jan Blok in the Netherlands (Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Volk, 1892–1908), Henri Pirenne in Belgium (Histoire de Belgique, 1900–1932), and Ernest Lavisse and his collaborators in France (Histoire de France, 1901–11) all gave their respective countries’ pasts an impressive, scholarly design. The first phase of the emergence of the nation-state, however, was also ac-companied by a stream of national histories. Johannes von Müller in Switzerland (Geschichten Schweizerischer Eidgenossenschaft, 1786–1808), Simonde de [End Page 329] Sismondi in Italy (Histoire des Républiques italiennes du Moyen Age, 1807–18), Augustin Thierry in France (Lettres sur l’Histoire de France, 1820–27), and Willem Bilderdijk in the Netherlands (Geschiedenis des Vader-lands, posthumously 1833–53) all became authors of patriotic and romantically tinted surveys and studies of (fragments from) their own national history.The work of this second group of historians fits with the cultural nationalism which took root during the last decades of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries and which is sometimes considered to have been the heart of romantic nationalism. 1 The supporters of this nationalism were con-vinced that culture, lifestyle, and social institutions could only be understood as the expression of the “soul,” the “spirit,” or the “character” of a people or nation. They tried to deduce this individual character through the language, popular literature, art, and “national” (as opposed to Roman) law, as is demonstrated by the Gaelic revival in Ireland. 2 History, however, also attracted their interest; the nation and the people were after all considered to be dynamic entities which developed along the lines of a multiple causal process. In England, for example, where nationalism arose as a protest against excessive foreign—French—cultural influence, a group of historians, among them Catherine Macaulay and John Pinkerton, started publishing nationalistic histories during the early years of George III’s reign, paying special attention to the origin of the English people. 3 Such cultural nationalism could, however, easily take on political overtones, especially when it was the nationalism of a people who were either stateless or dispersed throughout different states, or whose state was still young.These earliest national histories were meant as a contribution to the formation, consolidation, and confirmation of a national identity. Their writers had to lend unity, specificity, and continuity to the national past. They had to, as Novalis observed in 1798, “organize historical essentials.” 4 Their work was less a matter of reconstruction than of construction. It not only required the exploration of a hitherto unknown field, but first and foremost the resolution of new problems of representation inherent in the writing of “national biographies.” In this essay, I shall discuss some of these problems in the light of Belgian national historical writing from 1830 through 1850. The year 1830 constitutes an important watershed in the history of national movements... (shrink)

The article focuses in a particular way on two Jesuits of the XVII Century, Philips van Winghe e Jean l'Heureux . It describes their active participation in the scientific life of their time, as well as their own contributions to science.