Objectives To evaluate whether the requirement of “minimal risk and burden” for paediatric research without direct benefit to the subjects compromises the ability to obtain data necessary for improving paediatric care. To provide evidence-based reflections on the EU recommendation that allows for a higher level of risk. Design and setting Systematic analysis of the approval/rejection decisions made by the Dutch Central Committee on Research involving Human Subjects (CCMO). Review methods The analysis included 165 proposals for paediatric research without direct benefit (...) that were reviewed by the CCMO between January, 2000, and July, 2007. A separate, in-depth analysis of all drug studies included 18 early phase drug studies and nine other drug studies without direct benefit. Results 11 out of 165 studies were definitively rejected because the CCMO did not regard the risk and/or burden to be minimal. In three of these 11 cases (including two early phase drug studies) the requirement of minimal risk and burden was cited as the only reason for rejection. Four other early phase drug studies also involved risks and/or burdens that were not regarded to be minimal but were nevertheless approved. Conclusions The requirement of minimal risk and burden, aiming to protect research subjects, occasionally leads to rejection of protocols. Early phase drug studies relatively often do not comply with the requirement. Committees may find ways to approve important studies that formally should be rejected, but that is not a desirable solution. The regulatory framework should be revised to make such occasional exceptions to the requirement legitimate and transparent. (shrink)

Live donor kidney transplantation is the best treatment option for most patients with late-stage chronic kidney disease; however, the rate of living kidney donation has declined in the United States. A consensus conference was held June 5-6, 2014 to identify best practices and knowledge gaps pertaining to live donor kidney transplantation and living kidney donation. Transplant professionals, patients, and other key stakeholders discussed processes for educating transplant candidates and potential living donors about living kidney donation; efficiencies in the living donor (...) evaluation process; disparities in living donation; and financial and systemic barriers to living donation. We summarize the consensus recommendations for best practices in these educational and clinical domains, future research priorities, and possible public policy initiatives to remove barriers to living kidney donation. (shrink)

One hypothesis concerning the human dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is that it functions, in part, to signal the occurrence of conflicts in information processing, thereby triggering compensatory adjustments in cognitive control. Since this idea was first proposed, a great deal of relevant empirical evidence has accrued. This evidence has largely corroborated the conflict-monitoring hypothesis, and some very recent work has provided striking new support for the theory. At the same time, other findings have posed specific challenges, especially concerning the (...) way the theory addresses the processing of errors. Recent research has also begun to shed light on the larger function of the ACC, suggesting some new possibilities concerning how conflict monitoring might fit into the cingulate's overall role in cognition and action. (shrink)

This chapter presents a theory of prefrontal cortex function using the connectionist computational modeling framework. This modeling approach involves three components: computational analysis of the critical processing mechanisms required for cognitive control; use of neurobiologically plausible principles of information processing; and implementation and simulation of cognitive tasks and behavioral performance. The chapter describes behavioral and neuroimaging data on healthy young adults that validate critical components of the model. It then summarizes the application of the model to the clinical domain. These (...) studies highlight the power of the cognitive neuroscience approach by demonstrating how a single, integrated account of PFC function can capture a wide range of data from different methodologies and multiple populations. (shrink)

Early last year, the GenEthics Consortium (GEC) of the Washington Metropolitan Area convened at George Washington University to consider a complex case about genetic testing for Alzheimer disease (AD). The GEC consists of scientists, bioethicists, lawyers, genetic counselors, and consumers from a variety of institutions and affiliations. Four of the 8 co-authors of this paper delivered presentations on the case. Supplemented by additional ethical and legal observations, these presentations form the basis for the following discussion.

The death of Imre Lakatos on February 2, 1974 was a personal and philosophical loss to the worldwide circle of his friends, colleagues and students. This volume reflects the range of his interests in mathematics, logic, politics and especially in the history and methodology of the sciences. Indeed, Lakatos was a man in search of rationality in all of its forms. He thought he had found it in the historical development of scientific knowledge, yet he also saw rationality endangered everywhere. (...) To honor Lakatos is to honor his sharp and aggressive criticism as well as his humane warmth and his quick wit. He was a person to love and to struggle with. PAUL K. FEYERABEND ROBERT S. COHEN MARX W. WARTOFSKY TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface VII JOHN WORRALL / Imre Lakatos : Philosopher of Mathematics and Philosopher of Science JOSEPH AGASSI / The Lakatosian Revolution 9 23 D. M. ARMSTRONG / Immediate Perception w. W. BAR TLEY, III/On Imre Lakatos 37 WILLIAM BERKSON / Lakatos One and Lakatos Two: An Appreciation 39 I. B. COHEN / William Whewell and the Concept of Scientific Revolution 55 L. JONATHAN COHEN / How Can One Testimony Corroborate Another? 65 R. S. COHEN / Constraints on Science 79 GENE D'AMOUR/ Research Programs, Rationality, and Ethics 87 YEHUDA ELKANA / Introduction: Culture, Cultural System and Science 99 PA UL K. (shrink)

An account of a language in terms of the sense and reference of its sentences is inadequate and must be supplemented by indicating the point of uttering different sentences. Assuming that a sense and reference account will be given in terms of 'truth' conditions, The article shows that such an account is framed in terms of the notion: member of the class of sentences a language user attempts to utter, Rather than the notion of truth, And that one such account (...) can suffice for two languages. To specify a language completely, We must, In addition to a sense-Reference account, Specify which class of sentences language users attempt to utter. (shrink)

Applying machine learning algorithms to automatically infer relationships between concepts from large-scale collections of documents presents a unique opportunity to investigate at scale how human semantic knowledge is organized, how people use it to make fundamental judgments (“How similar are cats and bears?”), and how these judgments depend on the features that describe concepts (e.g., size, furriness). However, efforts to date have exhibited a substantial discrepancy between algorithm predictions and human empirical judgments. Here, we introduce a novel approach to generating (...) embeddings for this purpose motivated by the idea that semantic context plays a critical role in human judgment. We leverage this idea by constraining the topic or domain from which documents used for generating embeddings are drawn (e.g., referring to the natural world vs. transportation apparatus). Specifically, we trained state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms using contextually-constrained text corpora (domain-specific subsets of Wikipedia articles, 50+ million words each) and showed that this procedure greatly improved predictions of empirical similarity judgments and feature ratings of contextually relevant concepts. Furthermore, we describe a novel, computationally tractable method for improving predictions of contextually-unconstrained embedding models based on dimensionality reduction of their internal representation to a small number of contextually relevant semantic features. By improving the correspondence between predictions derived automatically by machine learning methods using vast amounts of data and more limited, but direct empirical measurements of human judgments, our approach may help leverage the availability of online corpora to better understand the structure of human semantic representations and how people make judgments based on those. (shrink)

In the past few years it has become apparent that the anterior/posterior (A/P) and dorsal/ventral (D/V) compartmant boundaries serve as the source of longrange signals that organize the A/P and D/V axes of the Drosophila wing. Recent work suggests that the vestigial gene may function as a nodal point through which the growth‐controlling activity of these two patterning systems is integrated(1).

Plato's Euthyrphro, Apology, andCrito portray Socrates' words and deeds during his trial for disbelieving in the Gods of Athens and corrupting the Athenian youth, and constitute a defense of the man Socrates and of his way of life, the philosophic life. The twelve essays in the volume, written by leading classical philosophers, investigate various aspects of these works of Plato, including the significance of Plato's characters, Socrates's revolutionary religious ideas, and the relationship between historical events and Plato's texts.

ABSTRACT This paper is intended to stimulate debate amongst stakeholders in the international research community on the topic of returning individual genetic research results to study participants. Pharmacogenetics and disease genetics studies are becoming increasingly prevalent, leading to a growing body of information on genetic associations for drug responsiveness and disease susceptibility with the potential to improve health care. Much of these data are presently characterized as exploratory (non‐validated or hypothesis‐generating). There is, however, a trend for research participants to be (...) permitted access to their personal data if they so choose. Researchers, sponsors, patient advocacy groups, ethics committees and regulatory authorities are consequently confronting the issue of whether, and how, study participants might receive their individual results. Noted international ethico‐legal guidelines and public policy positions in Europe and the United States are reviewed for background. The authors offer ‘Points‐to‐Consider’ regarding returning research results in the context of drug development trials based on their knowledge and experience. These considerations include: the clinical relevance of data, laboratory qualifications, informed consent procedures, confidentiality of medical information and the competency of persons providing results to participants. The discussion is framed as a benefit‐to‐risk assessment to balance the potential positive versus negative consequences to participants, while maintaining the integrity and feasibility of conducting genetic research studies. (shrink)

In this study, we examined the effects of emotional experience, a relatively new dimension of emotional knowledge that gauges the ease with which words evoke emotional experience, on abstract word processing in the Stroop task. In order to test the context-dependency of these effects, we accentuated the saliency of this dimension in Experiment 1A by blocking the stimuli such that one block consisted of the stimuli with the highest emotional experience ratings and the other block consisted of the stimuli with (...) the lowest emotional experience ratings. We attenuated the saliency of this dimension in Experiment 1B by intermixing the stimuli. We observed slower color naming performance for words with higher emotional experience ratings only in Experiment 1A, suggesting that the dimension of emotional experience is an aspect of semantic representation for abstract words but that its influence can be modulated by context. We interpret these results more generally using Vigliocco, Meteyard, Andrews, and Kousta's framework of semantic representation, and more specifically using Cohen, Dunbar, and McClelland's model of Stroop task performance. (shrink)

Increased investment in ethics education has prompted a variety of instructional objectives and frameworks. Yet, no systematic procedure to classify these varying instructional approaches has been attempted. In the present study, a quantitative clustering procedure was conducted to derive a typology of instruction in ethics education. In total, 330 ethics training programs were included in the cluster analysis. The training programs were appraised with respect to four instructional categories including instructional content, processes, delivery methods, and activities. Eight instructional approaches were (...) identified through this clustering procedure, and these instructional approaches showed different levels of effectiveness. Instructional effectiveness was assessed based on one of nine commonly used ethics criteria. With respect to specific training types, Professional Decision Processes Training and Field-Specific Compliance Training appear to be viable approaches to ethics training based on Cohen’s d effect size estimates. By contrast, two commonly used approaches, General Discussion Training and Norm Adherence Training, were found to be considerably less effective. The implications for instruction in ethics training are discussed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 11.2 (2001) 205-209 [Access article in PDF] Bioethics Inside the Beltway Banning Human Cloning-Then What? Cynthia B. Cohen The public wonder and concern that accompanied the birth of Dolly, the cloned sheep, four years ago died down soon after her arrival. Little has been heard about human reproductive cloning since then in the public square. This silence was pierced recently when two groups (...) each announced its intention to clone a child from a human being within the next few years.The Raelians, a religious organization, disclosed in October 2000 that they had found a grieving American couple willing to pay $500,000 to clone their deceased child and that they would proceed with cloning in a secret laboratory within the United States. A few months later, an international consortium led by Pavos Zavos, Ph.D., a University of Kentucky emeritus professor of biology, and Severino Antinori, M.D., an Italian infertility specialist, declared that it intended to clone the first human within two years at an undisclosed location outside the United States. These announcements led Representative James Greenwood (R-PA), chair of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, to convene a hearing on human cloning on 28 March 2001.Why did human reproductive cloning suddenly become of concern to the House of Representatives? What will the federal government do with regard to the development of human cloning at this point in time? And what should it do to address human cloning in the long-term? I will briefly highlight the major controversies that surfaced at the hearing and then consider the broader questions. Scientific Controversies The initial question of concern to the House subcommittee members was whether cloning science has now reached the point of application to humans. Scientists at the hearing offered widely diverging views about this. Zavos testified that only a small number of cloned animals has died after birth and declared that the key to avoiding impaired human clones is to engage in prenatal screening. Consequently, it is now safe to undertake human cloning, he maintained. He was supported in this view by Brigitte Boisselier, Ph.D., visiting assistant professor [End Page 205] of chemistry at Hamilton College and scientific director of the Raelians, who argued that human cloning would not give rise to the problems that have been encountered in nonhuman mammalian cloning.However, professor of veterinary medicine Mark Westhusin, Ph.D., of Texas A&M University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Rudolf Jaenisch, Ph.D., maintained that the same sorts of problems that have appeared in nonhuman mammalian cloning would reappear in human cloning. Westhusin stated that mammals have incurred serious defects leading to spontaneous abortion and that mammalian newborns often display severe respiratory and circulatory problems. The most likely explanation for such abnormalities, Jaenisch hypothesized, is that in cloning, the genetic reprogramming that governs the way an organism develops must take place in a much shorter period of time than in coital or in vitro reproduction. This may result in faulty reprogramming leading to dysregulation of gene expression and consequent genetic defects in cloned animals. There is good reason to think that this also would occur in human cloning, Jaenisch maintained. Until reproductive cloning research has been carried out on several generations of primates and is better understood, he argued, human cloning should not be attempted. Even then, several generations of descendants of human clones would have to be observed before scientists could be sure that it would not have a destructive impact on humans. This process could take as long as a century. Ethical Controversy Bioethicists who testified focused on those aspects of the ethical controversy surrounding human cloning that are of particular interest to public policy makers. Thomas Murray, Ph.D., President of The Hastings Center and a member of NBAC, maintained that human cloning is still unsafe, as NBAC had predicted, and that, if carried out, would leave in its wake "damaged women, many dead fetuses, and children born with serious impairments." He expressed particular concern that couples suffering... (shrink)

Volume 40, Issue 3, August 2019, Page 298-298.

Literature and Character Education in Universities presents the potential of literary and philosophical texts for character education in modern universities. The book engages with theoretical and practical aspects of character development in higher education, combining conceptual discussion of the role of literature in character education with applied case studies from university classrooms. Character education within the academic context of the university presents unique challenges and opportunities. Literature and Character Education in Universities presents perspectives from academics in Europe, the USA and (...) Asia, offering unique insights into the ways that engaged reading and discussion of core texts can promote the development of intellectual and moral virtues. Chapters draw on a wide range of texts from Confucius' Analects to J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, focusing on themes such as truthfulness, self-knowledge, prudence, tolerance, friendship, and humility. Literature and Character Education in Universities will be of real use to researchers, academics and postgraduates in the fields of higher education, philosophy, and literature. It should be essential reading for university educators interested in character development and advocates of literary education in modern universities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 11.4 (2001) 391-400 [Access article in PDF] Bioethics Inside the Beltway A Shooting on Capitol Hill: "The Ruby Satellite System," Mental Illness, and Failure of the American Legal System Peter J. Cohen On 24 July 1998, Russell Eugene Weston, Jr., stormed the United States Capitol, forced his way through a security checkpoint, bypassed a metal detector, and entered the office complex of Representative (...) Tom DeLay (R-TX), the House Majority Whip (Weil 1998). During this period of terror, he shot and killed two officers of the Capitol Police and seriously wounded another as they attempted to end his foray. 1 Weston was severely wounded by several Capital police officers and taken into custody. After being treated for his injuries, he was incarcerated in the District of Columbia. 2On 5 May 1999, Weston was transferred to the Federal Correctional Institute in Butner, North Carolina (United States v. Weston, 69 F. Supp. 2d 99 (D.D.C. 1999), 103), where he remains to this day. He has neither been brought to trial nor received appropriate psychiatric therapy, but continues to be warehoused "in solitary confinement under constant observation... in a psychotic state (United States v. Weston, 255 F.3d 873; LEXIS 16851 (U.S. App. 2001b), 3-4 [LEXIS]). I will briefly detail the legal events responsible for this mad situation and suggest alternative actions that should have been taken at the very onset of the case. Early Chronology Although overtly the crime appeared to be senseless and without any conceivable motivation, Weston believed that his acts were justified and necessary. The story he told to the court-appointed forensic psychiatrist, Sally C. Johnson, M.D., 3 was that while working for NASA in the early 1980s, he had developed a "Ruby Satellite System," a powerful machine that could reverse time. With access to this system, nothing was permanent--the user could simply reverse time and exit from the current scene. However, the "System" was now controlled by cannibals who were developing and spreading "Black Heva," the deadliest disease known to [End Page 391] humankind, similar to HIV or the plague. It resulted from human corpses rotting and turning black. Time was running out, and Weston believed he had to return to override the "Ruby Satellite System" in the Capitol so that he could stem the spread of "Black Heva" and prevent world calamity. He believed that if he were tried, convicted, and even executed, he could simply time reverse himself, place himself in a safe within the Capitol, and subsequently resume his life at whatever point he chose (United States v. Weston, 206 F.3d 9 (D.C. Cir. 2000), 19-20).On 22 April 1999, the district court accepted Dr. Johnson's diagnosis that Weston suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, the symptoms of which were so severe that he would be incapable of understanding the proceedings against him and of assisting in his own defense. On this basis, the court had no difficulty in finding him incompetent to stand trial (U.S. v. Weston 1999, 102).At Weston's initial hearing, Dr. Johnson had testified that medication would be efficacious in treating Weston's delusions: [T]he standard of care in someone suffering from this type of symptom picture would be to treat them with medication.... [T]here is a good likelihood that he'll have a positive response, positive in the sense that his symptoms will diminish in response to treatment.... The potential benefits to treating the defendant far outweigh the risks.... (U.S. v. Weston 1999, 108) The defense presented no expert testimony refuting Dr. Johnson's presentation. The district court then ordered that Weston begin receiving medication in order to render him nondangerous and competent for trial (U.S. v. Weston 1999, 108-9). The Problem Weston refused to be medicated! 4 He has continued to claim that the administration of antipsychotic drugs against his will would violate his Fifth Amendment due process liberty interest in avoiding unwanted bodily intrusion and implicated... (shrink)

Classics of Political and Moral Philosophy provides in one volume the major writings from nearly 2,500 years of political and moral philosophy. The most comprehensive collection of its kind, it moves from classical thought (Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Cicero) through medieval views (Augustine, Aquinas) to modern perspectives (Machiavelli, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Rousseau, Hume, Adam Smith, Kant). It includes major nineteenth-century thinkers (Hegel, Bentham, Mill, Nietzsche) as well as twentieth-century theorists (Rawls, Nozick, Nagel, Foucault, Habermas, Nussbaum). Also included are numerous essays from (...) The Federalist Papers and a variety of notable documents and addresses, among them Pericles' Funeral Oration, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and speeches by Edmund Burke, Abraham Lincoln, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, John Dewey, and Martin Luther King, Jr. The readings are substantial or complete texts, not fragments. An especially valuable feature of this volume is that the works of each author are introduced with a substantive and engaging essay by a leading contemporary authority. These introductions include Richard Kraut on Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, and Cicero; Paul J. Weithman on Augustine and Aquinas; Roger D. Masters on Machiavelli; Jean Hampton on Hobbes; Steven B. Smith on Spinoza and Hegel; A. John Simmons on Locke; Joshua Cohen on Rousseau and Rawls; Donald W. Livingston on Hume; Charles L. Griswold, Jr., on Smith; Bernard E. Brown on Hamilton and Madison; Jeremy Waldron on Bentham and Mill; Paul Guyer on Kant; Richard Miller on Marx and Engels; Richard Schacht on Nietzsche; Thomas Christiano on Nozick; John Deigh on Nagel; Thomas A. McCarthy on Foucault and Habermas; and Eva Feder Kittay on Nussbaum. Offering unprecedented breadth of coverage, Classics of Political and Moral Philosophy is an ideal text for courses in social and political philosophy, moral philosophy, or surveys in Western civilization. (shrink)