An analytical investigation into compressible gas flow with slight rarefactions through the insect trachea and tracheoles during the closed spiracle phase is undertaken, and a complete set of asymptotic analytical solutions is presented. We first obtain estimates of the Reynolds and Mach numbers at the channel terminal ends where the tracheoles directly deliver respiratory gases to the cells, by comparing the magnitude of the different forces in the compressible gas flow. The 2D Navier–Stokes equations with a slip boundary condition (...) are used to investigate compressibility and rarefied effects in the trachea and tracheoles. Expressions for the velocity components, pressure gradients and net flow inside the trachea are then presented. Numerical simulations of the tracheal compressible flow are performed to validate the analytical results from this study. This work extends previous work of Arkilic et al. :167–178, 1997) on compressible flows through a microchannel. Novel devices for microfluidic compressible flow transport may be invented from results obtained in this study. (shrink)

This paper examines whether the modern bioethical principles of respect for autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice proposed by Beauchamp and Childress are existent in, compatible with, or acceptable to the leading Chinese moral philosophy—the ethics of Confucius. The author concludes that the moral values which the four prima facie principles uphold are expressly identifiable in Confucius’ teachings. However, Confucius’ emphasis on the filial piety, family values, the “love of gradation”, altruism of people, and the “role specified relation oriented ethics” will (...) inevitably influence the “specification” and application of these bioethical principles and hence tend to grant “beneficence” a favourable position that diminishes the respect for individual rights and autonomy. In contrast, the centrality of respect for autonomy and its stance of “first among equals” are more and more stressed in Western liberal viewpoints. Nevertheless, if the Confucian “doctrine of Mean” and a balanced “two dimensional personhood” approach are properly employed, this will require both theorists and clinicians, who are facing medical ethical dilemmas, of searching to attain due mean out of competing moral principles thus preventing “giving beneficence a priority” or “asserting autonomy must triumph”. (shrink)

The four principles approach to biomedical ethics (4PBE) has, since the 1970s, been increasingly developed as a universal bioethics method. Despite its wide acceptance and popularity, the 4PBE has received many challenges to its cross-cultural plausibility. This paper first specifies the principles and characteristics of ancient Chinese medical ethics (ACME), then makes a comparison between ACME and the 4PBE with a view to testing out the 4PBE's cross-cultural plausibility when applied to one particular but very extensive and prominent cultural context. (...) The result shows that the concepts of respect for autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence and justice are clearly identifiable in ACME. Yet, being influenced by certain socio-cultural factors, those applying the 4PBE in Chinese society may tend to adopt a "beneficence-oriented", rather than an "autonomy-oriented" approach, which, in general, is dissimilar to the practice of contemporary Western bioethics, where "autonomy often triumphs". (shrink)

In the March 1982 issue of the Journal Dr Pheby, a community health doctor, was one of several writers to discuss medical confidentiality. Dr Pheby urged doctors to minimise subjective and judgmental comments in medical records and to make clear when their assessments were speculative. He also urged `vigorous reappraisal of the extent to which information about a patient needs to be circulated' to members of other disciplines, for instance, in child health practice. If doctors did not take such steps (...) themselves legal changes might well be imposed upon them, giving patients the right of access to their medical records and perhaps making breach of medical confidentiality a criminal offence. Mr Jacob, a lawyer, commenting on the papers by Dr Pheby and Mr Kenny, a health administrator, argued that increased legal intervention in medical ethics could quite possibly actually erode traditional medical ethical standards of confidentiality based on peer review and `the ethic of virtue'. (shrink)

I have argued in other work that emotion, attentional functions, and executive functions are three interpenetrant global state variables, essentially differential slices of the consciousness pie. This paper will outline the columnar architecture and connectivities of the PAG (periaqueductal gray), its role in organizing prototype states of emotion, and the re-entry of PAG with the extended reticular thalamic activating system (“ERTAS”). At the end we will outline some potential implications of these connectivities for possible functional correlates of PAG networks that (...) are just starting to be mapped. Overall, we will look at many lines of evidence that PAG should be conceptualized as a peri-reticular structure that has a foundational role in emotion, in generating the meaningful organization of behavior by the brain through prototype emotional states, and in allowing the various emotional systems to globally influence and tune both the forebrain and brainstem. Finally, we address implications of these concepts for what is currently understood about consciousness, underlining the need for somewhat more humility within consciousness studies about our current level of understanding of consciousness in the brain, combined with a deeper appreciation of the intrinsic connections between emotion and consciousness. One hopes that more concerted empirical interest in structures underneath the thalamus, combined with a deeper appreciation for the fundamental role that organismic and social value must have in bootstrapping awareness in the developing brain, would begin more widely to influence the fundamental lines of neuroscientific research in both emotion studies and consciousness studies. (shrink)

The dispositional analysis of sentences ascribing powers and abilities to things and people runs into many difficulties. The situation is especially complex and confusing when such ascriptions are brought to bear on particular occasions, and carry some implication about the opportunities available on those occasions. Some of these difficulties are produced by superficial confusions, but I shall concentrate on those that beset any version of the dispositional analysis. Three difficulties will be examined, one presented by Lehrer, and two by Austin.Lehrer (...) presents his difficulty as a refutation of Moore's dispositional analysis of “X could have acted otherwise”, which was “If X had chosen, he would have acted otherwise”. I shall introduce his objection by relating it to the distinctions drawn in Part I.· Expressed in my terminology, his point is that Moore's analysis presupposes that choosing is not an S-factor, and yet it might conceivably be an S-factor. (shrink)

Children, because of age-related reasons, are a vulnerable population, and protecting their health is a social, scientific and emotional priority. The increased susceptibility of children and fetuses to environmental agents has been widely discussed by the scientific community. Children may experience different levels of chemical exposure than adults, and their sensitivity to chemical toxicities may be increased or decreased in comparison with adults. Such considerations also apply to unborn and newborn children. Therefore, research on children is necessary in both clinical (...) and environmental fields, to provide age-specific relevant data regarding the efficacy and safety of medical treatments, and regarding the assessment of risk from unintended environmental exposure. In this context, the stakeholders are many, including children and their parents, physicians and public health researchers, and the society as a whole, with its ethical, regulatory, administrative and political components. The important ethical issues are information of participants and consent to participate. Follow-up and protection of data should be discussed in the context of biobanks, where children obtain individual rights when they become adults. It is important to realise that there are highly variable practices within European countries, which may have, in the past, led to differences in practical aspects of research in children. A number of recommendations are provided for research with children and environmental health. Environmental research with children should be scientifically justified, with sound research questions and valid study protocols of sufficient statistical power, ensuring the autonomy of the child and his/her family at the time of the study and later in life, if data and samples are used for follow-up studies. When children are enrolled, we recommend a consent dyad, including parental informed consent and the child’s assent and/or informed consent from older minors. For evaluation of the studies including children, a paediatrician should always be involved in the research ethics committee. (shrink)

Austin's lecture on this topic contributes little to the problem of freedom of the will, and so in my discussion of his ideas I shall stop short of the difficult part of that problem. His most important positive suggestion is that hypotheticals should be divided into two classes, conditionals and pseudo-conditionals. He claims that neglect of this distinction has been the cause of mistakes in certain forms of the dispositional analysis of the statement that an agent could have acted otherwise, (...) and he then goes on to criticise all forms of that analysis using arguments which do not depend on the difference between the two kinds of hypothetical.This discussion will be in two parts. In the first I shall take up Austin's distinction between conditionals and pseudos and criticise it and develop it at length, because it seems to me to be the most important thing in his lecture. Since I shall not have space for comment on fortuitous errors made by defenders of the dispositional analysis of the claim that an agent could have acted otherwise, I shall concentrate on the essential features of that analysis. (shrink)