In Roper v. Simmons (2005) the United States Supreme Court announced a paradigm shift in jurisprudence. Drawing specifically on mounting scientific evidence that adolescents are qualitatively different from adults in their decision-making capacities, the Supreme Court recognized that adolescents are not adults in all but age. The Court concluded that the overwhelming weight of the psychological and neurophysiological data regarding brain maturation supports the conclusion that adolescents are qualitatively different types of agents than adult persons. The Supreme Court further solidified (...) its position regarding adolescents as less than fully mature and responsible decisionmakers in Graham v. Florida (2010) and Miller v. Alabama (2012). In each case, the Court concluded that the scientific evidence does not support the conclusion that children under 18 years of age possess adult capacities for personal agency, rationality, and mature choice. This study explores the implications of the Supreme Court decisions in Roper v. Simmons, Graham v. Florida, and Miller v. Alabama for the “mature minor” standard for medical decision making. It argues that the Supreme Court’s holdings in Roper, Graham, and Miller require no less than a radical reassessment of how healthcare institutions, courts of law, and public policy are obliged to regard minors as medical decisionmakers. The “mature minor” standard for medical decision making must be abandoned. (shrink)

In addition to the aim of mapping and sequencing one human's genome, the Human Genome Project also intends to characterise the genetic diversity of the world's peoples. The Human Genome Diversity Project raises political, economic and ethical issues. These intersect clearly when the genomes under study are those of indigenous peoples who are already subject to serious economic, legal and/or social disadvantage and discrimination. The fact that some individuals associated with the project have made dismissive comments about indigenous peoples has (...) confused rather than illuminated the deeper issues involved, as well as causing much antagonism among indigenous peoples. There are more serious ethical issues raised by the project for all geneticists, including those who are sympathetic to the problems of indigenous peoples. With particular attention to the history and attitudes of Australian indigenous peoples, we argue that the Human Genome Diversity Project can only proceed if those who further its objectives simultaneously: respect the cultural beliefs of indigenous peoples; publicly support the efforts of indigenous peoples to achieve respect and equality; express respect by a rigorous understanding of the meaning of equitable negotiation of consent, and ensure that both immediate and long term economic benefits from the research flow back to the groups taking part. (shrink)

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M. F. Burnyeat taught for 14 years in the Philosophy Department of University College London, then for 18 years in the Classics Faculty at Cambridge, 12 of them as the Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy, before migrating to Oxford in 1996 to become a Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy at All Souls College. The studies, articles and reviews collected in these two volumes of Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy were all written, and all but two published, before that decisive (...) change. Whether designed for a scholarly audience or for a wider public, they range from the Presocratics to Augustine, from Descartes and Bishop Berkeley to Wittgenstein and G. E. Moore. Their subject-matter falls under four main headings: 'Logic and Dialectic' and 'Scepticism Ancient and Modern', which make up the first volume, with 'Knowledge' and 'Philosophy and the Good Life' contained in this, the second volume. The title 'Explorations' well expresses Burnyeat's ability to discover new aspects of familiar texts, new ways of solving old problems. In his hands the history of philosophy becomes itself a philosophical activity. (shrink)

Background: Hospital nurses are frequently the first care givers to receive a patient’s request for euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide (PAS). In France, there is no consensus over which medical practices should be considered euthanasia, and this lack of consensus blurred the debate about euthanasia and PAS legalisation. This study aimed to investigate French hospital nurses’ opinions towards both legalisations, including personal conceptions of euthanasia and working conditions and organisation. Methods: A phone survey conducted among a random national sample of 1502 (...) French hospital nurses. We studied factors associated with opinions towards euthanasia and PAS, including contextual factors related to hospital units with random-effects logistic models. Results: Overall, 48% of nurses supported legalisation of euthanasia and 29%, of PAS. Religiosity, training in pallative care/pain management and feeling competent in end-of-life care were negatively correlated with support for legalisation of both euthanasia and PAS, while nurses working at night were more prone to support legalisation of both. The support for legalisation of euthanasia and PAS was also weaker in pain treatment/palliative care and intensive care units, and it was stronger in units not benefiting from interventions of charity/religious workers and in units with more nurses. Conclusions: Many French hospital nurses uphold the legalisation of euthanasia and PAS, but these nurses may be the least likely to perform what proponents of legalisation call “good” euthanasia. Improving professional knowledge of palliative care could improve the management of end-of-life situations and help to clarify the debate over euthanasia. (shrink)

Next SectionCultural differences in end-of-life care and the moral disagreements these sometimes give rise to have been well documented. Even so, cultural considerations relevant to end-of-life care remain poorly understood, poorly guided, and poorly resourced in health care domains. Although there has been a strong emphasis in recent years on making policy commitments to patient-centred care and respecting patient choices, persons whose minority cultural worldviews do not fit with the worldviews supported by the conventional principles of western bioethics face a (...) perpetual struggle in getting their care needs met in a meaningful, safe, and healing way. In this essay, attention is given to exploring why cultural differences exist, why they matter, and how health care providers should treat them in order to reduce the incidence and impact of otherwise preventable harmful moral outcomes in end-of-life care. In addressing these questions, a novel application of the renowned terror management theory will be made. (shrink)

Dissociative style is mostly studied as a risk factor for dissociative pathology, but it may also reflect a fundamental characteristic of healthy information processing. Due to the close link between attention and working memory and the previous finding of enhanced attentional abilities with a high dissociative style, a positive relationship was also expected between dissociative style and verbal working memory span. In a sample of 119 psychology students, it was found that the verbal span of the high-dissociative group was about (...) half a word larger than of the medium and low-dissociative groups. It is suggested that dissociative style may be one of only very few individual differences that is directly relevant to consciousness research. (shrink)

The medieval Islamic philosophers held a certain conception of the divine unity that assumes the necessary existent to be both one and simple. The oneness of the necessary existent meant that it is the only necessary existent and its simplicity meant that it admits no composition whatsoever – it is pure essence and its essence is necessary existence. In The Incoherence of the Philosophers al-Ġazālī presents, with elaboration, an exposition of the philosophers' conception of the divine unity, several arguments for (...) its two components, and his critique of these arguments. In this paper I focus on six of the arguments attributed to the philosophers. Following the textual evidence, I reconstruct these arguments and offer two possible interpretations of them. The first interpretation, which I call the many-argument interpretation, sees one of the arguments as employing the simplicity of the necessary existent to establish its oneness and the other five arguments as invoking oneness to establish simplicity. The second interpretation, which I call the one-argument interpretation, doesn't offer a new reading for the first argument but sees the other five arguments as defending the simplicity of the necessary existent based on its basic concept. I argue for the superiority of the one-argument interpretation. Résumé Les philosophes de l'Islam classique ont une doctrine de l'unité divine selon laquelle l'existant nécessaire est à la fois unique et simple. Son unicité signifie qu'il est le seul existant nécessaire, sa simplicité qu'il n'admet aucune sorte de composition; il est pure essence et son essence est existence nécessaire. Dans la Destruction des Philosophes, al-Ġazālī présente avec force détails un exposé de la doctrine de l'unité divine des philosophes, plusieurs arguments en faveur de ses deux composantes, ainsi que sa critique de ces arguments. Je me concentre ici sur six des arguments qu'il attribue aux philosophes. En suivant les données textuelles, je reconstruis ces arguments et en propose deux interprétations possibles. La première, que j'appelle l'interprétation “à arguments multiples”, identifie l'un des arguments comme s'appuyant sur la simplicité de l'existant nécessaire pour établir son unicité, et les cinq autres comme s'appuyant sur son unicité pour établir sa simplicité. La seconde, que j'appelle l'interprétation “à argument unique”, conserve la première lecture du premier argument mais voit dans les cinq autres une défense de la simplicité de l'existant nécessaire fondée sur sa notion fondamentale. J'argumente en faveur de la supériorité de l'interprétation “à argument unique”. (shrink)

Within the moral/social order maintained and reproduced by biomedical ethics (i.e., the “peaceable community”), suffering is a senseless accident with no value. Insofar as suffering compromises the fundamental pillar of this order, namely, autonomy, it threatens the existence of the “peaceable community”. Consequently, biomedical ethics is only able to offer those who suffer one moral or practical response: that of elimination, embodied most vividly in the increasingly approved practice of assisted-suicide. Another moral/ social order, however, the “peaceable Kingdom” or the (...) “Body of Christ”, provides an alternative understanding of the meaning, purpose, and significance of suffering, through the Roman Catholic sacrament of anointing of the sick. Recognizing the power of sickness and suffering to “dis-inscribe” bodies of their normative self-understandings, the Church responds with a set of liturgical practices which intend to respond to the dynamics of suffering, re-inscribe these bodies, and assist persons in fulfilling the vocation of “participating in Christ's suffering for the salvation of the world”. (shrink)

Special groups [M. Dickmann, F. Miraglia, Special Groups : Boolean-Theoretic Methods in the Theory of Quadratic Forms, Memoirs Amer. Math. Soc., vol. 689, Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 2000] are a first-order axiomatization of the theory of quadratic forms. In Section 2 we investigate reduced special groups which are a lattice under their natural representation partial order ; we show that this lattice property is preserved under most of the standard constructions on RSGs; in particular finite RSGs and RSGs of (...) finite chain length are lattice ordered. We prove that the lattice property fails for the RSGs of function fields of real algebraic varieties over a uniquely ordered field dense in its real closure, unless their stability index is 1 . We show that Open Problem 1 has a positive answer for the RSG of the field Q . In the final section we explore the meaning of Open Problem 1 for formally real fields, in terms of their orders and real valuations; we introduce the notion of “parameter-rank” of a positive-primitive first-order formula of the language for special groups. (shrink)

The law of Athens prohibited any but full citizens from owning land or houses. Thus the law also impeded the bequeathing of real property to those who were not citizens. This law seemed to preclude those who were the real backbone of the trading and banking businesses from owning land and, therefore, from lending and borrowing by using it as a security.

Several of the treatises and lectures that make up the Hippocratic corpus begin with more or less extended statements about the physical composition and operation of the world at large, and approach the study of human physiology from this angle. We see this, for example, in De Natwra Hominis, De Flatibus, De Carnibus, De Victu; it was the approach of Alcmaeon of Croton, Diogenes of Apollonia, and according to Plato of Hippocrates himself. The work known as De Hebdomadibus would appear (...) to be a prime example of the type. The first twelve chapters are cosmological. They are dominated by two ideas: that everything in nature is arranged in groups of seven, and that the human body is constructed on the same pattern as the whole world. In the later part of the book we pass to the subject of fevers, their causation and treatment. But as Roscher observed, the cosmology and the pathology do not belong together. (shrink)

It is generally believed that the de Broglie-Bohm model does not admit a particle interpretation for massive relativistic spin-0 particles, on the basis that particle trajectories cannot be defined. We show this situation is due to the fact that in the standard representation of the Klein-Gordon equation the wavefunction systematically contains superpositions of particle and anti-particle contributions. We argue that by working in a Foldy-Wouthuysen type representation uncoupling the particle from the anti-particle evolutions, a positive conserved density for a particle (...) and associated density current can be defined. For the free Klein-Gordon equation the velocity field obtained from this current density appears to be well-behaved and sub-luminal in typical instances. As an illustration, Bohmian trajectories for a spin-0 boson distribution are computed numerically for free propagation in situations in which the standard velocity field would take arbitrarily high positive and negative values. (shrink)

In the first Critique Kant introduced the analytic/synthetic distinction and illustrated it with theoretical propositions. As his main aim in that work was to justify synthetic a priori propositions, Kant was able to bring his central questions into relief and discuss the methodology of their solution by contrasting synthetic propositions, such as: “Every event has a cause” with analytic propositions, such as: “Every effect has a cause.” Consequently, few commentators have any difficulty in stating as propositions the propositions Kant is (...) justifying in the first Critique or in pointing out the difficulty of justifying such propositions. (shrink)

L.S. Vygotskii was an outstanding generator of problems. This is what makes his texts more than vestigial curiosities.

Let A be an algebra. We say that the functions f 1 , . . . , f m : A n → A are algebraic on A provided there is a finite system of term-equalities $${{\bigwedge t_{k}(\overline{x}, \overline{z}) = s_{k}(\overline{x}, \overline{z})}}$$ satisfying that for each $${{\overline{a} \in A^{n}}}$$, the m -tuple $${{(f_{1}(\overline{a}), \ldots , f_{m}(\overline{a}))}}$$ is the unique solution in A m to the system $${{\bigwedge t_{k}(\overline{a}, \overline{z}) = s_{k}(\overline{a}, \overline{z})}}$$. In this work we present a collection of general (...) tools for the study of algebraic functions, and apply them to obtain characterizations for algebraic functions on distributive lattices, Stone algebras, finite abelian groups and vector spaces, among other well known algebraic structures. (shrink)

Neuroimaging is critical in the diagnosis and treatment of brain cancers; however, the first detection of tumors is a challenge. Detection techniques like image segmentation are heavily reliant on the segmented image’s resolution. Magnetic resonance imaging tumor segmentation has emerged as a new study area in the medical imaging field. This spongy and delicate mass of tissue is the brain. Stable conditions allow for patterns to enter and interact with each other. To put it simply, a tumor is a mass (...) of tissue that has grown unchecked by the natural mechanisms that keep it under control. When cells divide uncontrollably, they create a cancerous tumor. Brain tumors can be detected and segmented using a variety of methods. A new method for detecting brain tumors using MRI images is presented in this research. An innovative Woelfel filter is used for enhancement, and morphological segmentation approaches combined with anisotropic diffusion are used for segmentation. Segmentation of brain tumors can be accomplished using thresholding and morphological techniques, which are both effective. The tumor will be located and identified using morphological image processing. Image denoising refers to the process of removing artefacts such as noise and aliasing from digital images. Here MATLAB programming language is utilised as it incorporates all the toolboxes required for the application involved in the work. (shrink)

Takanat ha-shavim, Magen ṿa-shemesh. Ṿa-yaged Moshesh, hosafot ṿe-heʻarot ʻal sefer Takanat ha-shavim.

This article summarizes in three specific sections the key challenges faced by Christian and, particularly Orthodox, ethics in a secularized society. The first section, focusing on the task and aim of ethics, defines Orthodox ethics, which is linked with asceticism and aims at overcoming death and encountering the personal God. Put differently, the purpose of Orthodox ethics is the deification of human beings. The second section defines secularization and explores its consequences for the theology and pastoral work of the Church. (...) Europe is dominated by scholasticism and moralism, whereas Orthodox theology, without rejecting it, transcends such a narrow preoccupation with our own world. Orthodoxy does not regard human beings solely from the perspective of their biological existence but assists them in going beyond mechanistic theories and the pursuit of happiness. The third section briefly describes how what can be termed “bio-theology” surpasses anthropocentric ethics with regard to the relationship between creation and grace, birth and rebirth, cloning and incarnation, transplantation and deification, and death and resurrection. The article concludes that Orthodox theology does not reject the achievements of biotechnology or biomedicine; assists humans in overcoming mortality by finding meaning for their existence and fullness of life, and does not simply postpone death, but overcomes the fear of death and leads people to deification by grace. (shrink)