The purpose of this paper is twofold: to comment on certain remarks of E. Koestermann, and to examine briefly some passages adduced by K. Wellesley as evidence for the alleged independence of the Leidensis . In a paper in CQ N.S. XV , 299–322, I attempted to demonstrate by various arguments that the readings of L are not such as to support the claim that this manuscript has authority independent of M. Those arguments may be summarized as follows: that the (...) majority of L's readings fall into a pattern of systematic normalization, that they give virtually no help in solving really deep corruptions, that L is particularly unreliable in transmitting proper names, that many readings of L show clear signs of being derived from M, that few of the good readings in L could not have been extracted from the corrupt text of M, and that other fifteenth-century manuscripts of Tacitus contain good corrections, not inferior to corrections found in L. No defender of L has yet, as far as I know, answered the arguments I put forward, and E. Koestermann has not even understood them, for he writes as follows : ‘[Goodyear] legt den Finger darauf, daß die abweichenden Lesarten in L in ihrer Diktion stärker ciceronischen Charakter tragen, demnach eher als Konjekturen zu verstehen seien. Aber dies Argument ist nicht durchschlagend, da die späteren Annalenbücher … eine gemässigtere Tendenz aufweisen und damit näher an Cicero heranrücken.’. (shrink)

‘Tiberium Neronem et Claudium Drusum priuignos imperatoriis nominibus auxit [sc. Augustus]’’, i.e. honoured them with salutations as ‘imperatores’’. So I took it in my commentary , supposing argument needless. I must now defend my view against R. Syme, Historia antiqua, Commentationes Louanienses in honorem W. Peremans , p.239. Syme asserts ‘Avoiding a technical term, he [Tacitus] describes the stepsons of the Princeps as invested with imperatoriis nominibus . That is, a grant of imperium proconsular .’’ He adds in a footnote (...) ‘As emerges clearly from Dio 54.33.5 , cf. 34.4 . The matter must be stated firmly, since both Koestermann and Goodyear are totally inadequate.’’ Let me make amends. (shrink)

Readings from a manuscript which once belonged to Rodolphus Agricola and later to Theodore Ryck were well known to and lightly esteemed by the editors of Tacitus from the late seventeenth to mid nineteenth centuries. Ryck cited over 1,200 of them in his edition of 1687. Later the whereabouts of the manuscript remained long unknown, until it was rediscovered by C. W. Mendell as Leidensis BPL 16. B in the University Library at Leiden.

Background: Nursing students on clinical placements as part of their professional training are routinely faced with situations involving ethical conflicts. The initial act of perceiving a situation as causing an ethical dilemma is the result of both the students’ personal values, drawn from their culture and families, and of the professional knowledge and values that they have acquired through training and experience. Objectives: Nursing students’ experiences on clinical placements in primary care settings were investigated in order to identify situations that (...) they perceived as involving ethical conflict and describe the elements they took into consideration during their decision-making processes in these situations. Methods: The research design was qualitative descriptive case study. Around 50 students from three different intakes to a nursing degree answered a questionnaire and discussed it in focus groups. Ethical considerations: The study was designed in accordance with the principles guiding research with human beings and was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee. Results: Synthesised into two principal axes: (a) ethical conflicts in primary care, linked with the domains of working processes, professional nursing ethics and human and social rights and (b) students’ decision-making processes – realisation, reflection and intervention. Conclusion: The student nurses saw themselves both as actors and spectators in situations involving ethical problems and demanding moral deliberation, demonstrating the ability to base their arguments soundly. They tended to emphasise the possibilities offered by dialogue and that different ethical values must be respected to find fair solutions to ethical problems. (shrink)

In many research studies, tumor biopsies are an unavoidable requirement for achieving key scientific aims. Yet some commentators view mandatory research biopsies as coercive and suggest they should be optional, or at least optional until further data are obtained regarding their scientific usefulness. Further complicating the ethical picture is the fact that some research biopsies offer a potential for clinical benefit to trial participants. We interviewed and surveyed a convenience sample of participants in phase I clinical trials at a single (...) institution. Our primary aim was to describe phase I participants’ understanding of whether a research biopsy offered them the prospect of medical benefit. We also endeavored to describe participants’ views about biopsies—specifically, the benefits of biopsies, if any, and whether biopsies were acceptable, risky, or discouraged trial participation. Finally, we collected data on demographics and attitudes to see if any strong correlations with misunderstanding, acceptability, or riskiness existed. Overall, the respondents tended to view research biopsies as acceptable, though they did not succeed in identifying the lack of benefit of a research biopsy. These findings call for renewed efforts in consent conversations and documents to carefully describe the benefits, or lack thereof, of research biopsies. (shrink)

Weber-Fechner Law states that the perceived intensity is proportional to the logarithm of the stimulus. Recent experiments suggest that this law also holds true for perception of numerosity. Therefore, the use of a logarithmic scale for the quantification of the perceived intensity may also depend on how the cognitive apparatus processes information. If Weber-Fechner law is the result of natural selection, then the logarithmic scale should be better, in some sense, than other biologically feasible scales. We consider the minimization of (...) the relative error as the target of natural selection and we provide a formal proof that the logarithmic scale minimizes the maximal relative error. (shrink)