Disclosure of financial interests in scientific research is the centerpiece of the new conflict of interest regulations issued by the U.S. Public Health Service and the National Science Foundation that became effective October 1, 1995. Several scientific journals have also established financial disclosure requirements for contributors. This paper measures the frequency of selected financial interests held among authors of certain types of scientific publications and assesses disclosure practices of authors. We examined 1105 university authors (first and last cited) from Massachusetts (...) institutions whose 789 articles, published in 1992, appeared in 14 scientific and medical journals. (shrink)

CHAPTER INTRODUCTION: SOME CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS Arguments and Argument Forms Argumentation takes place whenever reasons are offered to support some ...

Open peer commentary on the article “Circularity and the Micro-Macro-Difference” by Manfred Füllsack. Upshot: Circularity occurs as emergent from either process or context or a combination of process and context.

Open peer commentary on the article “The Circular Conditions of Second-order Science Sporadically Illustrated with Agent-based Experiments at the Roots of Observation” by Manfred Füllsack. Upshot: The aim of my commentary is to reflect on fundamental issues related to circularity, distinction and the properties of observers.

It is difficult to understand the meaning of 'dignity' in human rights, bioethics and nursing literature because the word is used so vaguely. Unless dignity's meaning is spelt out it can disappear beneath more tangible priorities. In this article we define dignity and show how this can help health workers to maintain the dignity of people in their care.

For the last fifty years, the United States healthcare system has done an extremely poor job of delivering healthcare in a just and fair manner. The United States holds the dubious distinction of being the only industrialized nation in the world lacking provisions to ensure universal coverage. We attempt to provide some of the reasons this dysfunctional system has persisted and show that healthcare should not be a commodity. We begin with a brief historical overview of healthcare delivery in the (...) United States since WWII. This is followed by a critical analysis of the for-profit model including reasons to support the view that healthcare should not be a free market commodity. We also demonstrate how special interest groups have been able to win support for their practices based on propaganda rather than fact. A brief analysis of the Affordable Care Act is offered along with critical comments regarding its ineffectiveness. We conclude with a brief overview of international approaches that have resulted in universal coverage and suggest the United States ought to adopt an approach similar to those outlined so that it no longer stands as the only industrialized nation to ignore the glaring problems that exist. (shrink)

Currently living people cannot be said to be wronged because of the wrongless emissons of greenhouse gases by past people. According to the usual subjunctive-historical understanding of harm, currently living people cannot be said to be harmed by the impact of greenhouse emissions on their well-being. By relying on a subjunctive-threshold notion of harm we can justify conclusions about both the present generation’s duties not to violate the rights of future generations, and the present generation’s duties to compensate currently living (...) people for the harms inflicted upon them through the lasting impact of wrongless past harms. This interpretation supports a forward-looking understanding of the grounds of our relating to wrongless past harms. The significance of past harms lies in their consequences for the well-being of currently living and future people. The subjunctive-threshold notion of harm lends support to a standard of minimal, general, and universal justice. Those actors who are in a position to fulfill its requirements are under a duty to do so. Especially the rich and powerful countries ought to counteract the harmful impact of past greenhouse emissions. (shrink)

The proportion of older people in the total population is increasing in most countries because of advances in medical technology and resulting longer life expectancy. The role that older people play in our communities does not reflect this. Sometimes they are reduced to mere statistics and stereotypes in economic and political discussions on the financial burdens of care for older people. I argue that we need to rebuild inclusive communities in which older people are respected as valuable members. I suggest (...) that this can be done by studying the characteristics of past communities and by learning from the work of environmental ethicists who advocate the preservation of our heritage. Nurses share with them a holistic perspective on complex issues such as ageing. They are therefore in a position to empower older people to play a role in our communities as unique individuals with integrity and wisdom. (shrink)

The introduction explain the need for how an international, inclusive discussion about the range of different methodological approaches from different traditions of philosophy can be read alongside each other and be seen in sometimes very critical conversation with each other. In addition, the introduction identifies four broad themes in the volume: the largest group of chapters advocate methods that promote history of philosophy as an unapologetic, autonomous enterprise with its own criteria within philosophy. Second, three chapters can be seen as (...) historicizing the history of philosophy from within. Third, four chapters argue for history of philosophy as a means toward making contributions to contemporary philosophy. Finally, two chapters explore the relationship between the history of philosophy and the history of science. (shrink)

The principal contemporary moral views are treated under three headings: 1) Intuitionism, represented by G. E. Moore, H. A. Prichard, and W. D. Ross; 2) Emotivism, as expounded by C. L. Stevenson; and 3) Prescriptivism, R. M. Hare's view. Warnock carefully distinguishes the questions these views were designed to answer from the questions which he feels they do in fact answer. Warnock emphasizes throughout the problem of the relation between moral discourse and conduct, as well as the question of the (...) possibility of moral "argument" in the sense of giving "reasons" for a moral viewpoint. In the latter half of the volume Warnock sketches what he takes to be some of the necessary requirements for a more adequate moral theory. He discusses "Naturalism" and rejects the blanket term as misleading unless the precise view one labels "naturalistic" is spelled out. Warnock distinguishes two "anti-naturalist" views: 1) that description and evaluation are different, i.e., that evaluation is not "reducible" to description and 2) that they are logically independent. He considers 1) a platitude. He accepts 2), but rejects what might be considered a further implication of this view—that absolutely anything might be regarded as a criterion of evaluation. In conclusion Warnock suggests that it might be profitable to look for the distinctive features of moral discourse in the content rather than the form. A good introduction to critical thinking, Warnock's account raises more questions than it answers.—C. L. H. (shrink)

The author of this interesting study seeks to understand being in its unity--das Sein des Seienden--in terms of free will, the unifying base between death and existence. The work is rich in ideas and suggestive in its interpretations, though it suffers at times from a lack of clarity in expression. Part of Chapter Two appeared in this Review, IV.--L. H. E.

Let the individuals of a population be divided into two groups with different personal habits. The core group is associated with health risk behaviors; the non-core group avoids unhealthy activities. Assume that the infected individuals of the core group can spread a contagious disease to the whole population. Also, assume that cure does not confer immunity. Here, an epidemiological model written as a set of ordinary differential equations is proposed to investigate the infection propagation in this population. In the model, (...) migrations between these two groups are allowed; however, the transitions from the non-core group into the core group prevail. These migrations can be either spontaneous or stimulated by social pressure. It is analytically shown that, in the scenario of spontaneous migration, the disease is either naturally eradicated or chronically persists at a constant level. In the scenario of stimulated migration, in addition to eradication and constant persistence, self-sustained oscillations in the number of sick individuals can also be found. These analytical results are illustrated by numerical simulations and discussed from a public health perspective. (shrink)

Bruening describes his book as "an attempt to capture the spirit of the man—not his works and his life considered in isolation from each other, but the person himself as one single human being." For the most part, however, life and works are separately presented, most of the biographical data being concentrated in the first chapter. Thereafter the works are treated one by one, in largely chronological order: "Notes on Logic" ; "Notes Dictated to Moore" ; Notebooks ; Prototractatus ; (...) Tractatus ; "Lecture on Ethics" ; Blue Book ; Brown Book ; Philosophical Investigations ; Philosophische Bemerkungen ; Philosophical Grammar ; Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics ; Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief ; Zettel ; On Certainty. Bruening does not explain his principles of selection. The direction of his interests is suggested by the ten pages on Lectures and Conversations, not written by Wittgenstein, as compared to the mere half page devoted to On Certainty, or by the four pages on a popular lecture on ethics as compared to the single page on Philosophische Bemerkungen. Longer treatments follow the course of the work being glossed and sample its topics, save in the case of the Investigations, where remarks are grouped under these five headings: "Reflections on the Tractatus," "Language Games and Forms of Life," "The Mind-Body Problem and Private Language," "The Nature of Philosophy," and "Seeing and Seeing As." Doubtless beginning readers such as Bruening usually has in view would have found more profit and interest in the coherent development of such themes than in running comments on work after work, especially if they had been shown inside Wittgenstein’s problems and been made to sense the struggle. This seldom happens, however, and the inaccuracies are numerous and sometimes serious. A select bibliography is appended.—G.L.H. (shrink)