BackgroundAs a number of commentators have noted, SARS exposed the vulnerabilities of our health care systems and governance structures. Health care professionals (HCPs) and hospital systems that bore the brunt of the SARS outbreak continue to struggle with the aftermath of the crisis. Indeed, HCPs – both in clinical care and in public health – were severely tested by SARS. Unprecedented demands were placed on their skills and expertise, and their personal commitment to their profession was severely tried. Many were (...) exposed to serious risk of morbidity and mortality, as evidenced by the World Health Organization figures showing that approximately 30% of reported cases were among HCPs, some of whom died from the infection. Despite this challenge, professional codes of ethics are silent on the issue of duty to care during communicable disease outbreaks, thus providing no guidance on what is expected of HCPs or how they ought to approach their duty to care in the face of risk.DiscussionIn the aftermath of SARS and with the spectre of a pandemic avian influenza, it is imperative that we (re)consider the obligations of HCPs for patients with severe infectious diseases, particularly diseases that pose risks to those providing care. It is of pressing importance that organizations representing HCPs give clear indication of what standard of care is expected of their members in the event of a pandemic. In this paper, we address the issue of special obligations of HCPs during an infectious disease outbreak. We argue that there is a pressing need to clarify the rights and responsibilities of HCPs in the current context of pandemic flu preparedness, and that these rights and responsibilities ought to be codified in professional codes of ethics. Finally, we present a brief historical accounting of the treatment of the duty to care in professional health care codes of ethics.SummaryAn honest and critical examination of the role of HCPs during communicable disease outbreaks is needed in order to provide guidelines regarding professional rights and responsibilities, as well as ethical duties and obligations. With this paper, we hope to open the social dialogue and advance the public debate on this increasingly urgent issue. (shrink)

The authors conducted a baseline survey of baccalaureate and graduate degree health humanities programs in the United States and Canada. The object of the survey was to formally assess the current state of the field, to gauge what kind of resources individual programs are receiving, and to assess their self-identified needs to become or remain programmatically sustainable, including their views on the potential benefits of program accreditation. A 56-question baseline survey was sent to 111 institutions with baccalaureate programs and 20 (...) institutions with graduate programs. Respondents were asked about three areas: (1) program administration (managing unit, paid director, faculty lines, paid staff, funding sources); (2) educational program (curricular structure, CIP code usage, completion rates); and (3) views on accreditation for the field. A clear majority of respondents agreed that some form of accreditation or consultation service could address resource and sustainability issues. Overall, the survey responses to staffing, curricular structure, and support suggest the need for developing a sustainable infrastructure for health humanities. (shrink)

The concept of a G‐quartet, a unique structural arrangement intrinsic to guanine‐rich DNA, was first introduced by Gellert and colleagues1 over 40 years ago. For decades, it has been uncertain whether the G‐quartet and the structure that it gives rise to, the G‐quadruplex, are purely in vitro phenomena. Nevertheless, the presence of signature G‐rich motifs in the eukaryotic genome, and the plethora of proteins that bind to, modify or resolve this nucleic acid structure in vitro have provided circumstantial evidence for (...) its physiological relevance. More recently, direct visualisation of G‐quadruplex DNA at native telomeres was achieved, bolstering the evidence for its existence in the cell. Furthermore, G‐quadruplex folded telomeric DNA has been found to perturb telomere function and to impede the action of telomerase, an enzyme overexpressed in >85% of human cancers, hence opening up a novel avenue for cancer therapy in the form of G‐quadruplex stabilising agents. BioEssays 29: 155–165, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:INDIRECT METHODS IN THEOLOGY: KARL RAHNER AS AN AD HOC APOLOGIST NICHOLAS M. HEALY St. John's University Staten Island, New York THE PURPOSE of this paper is to discuss Karl Rahner's emarks upon, and use of, what he called ' indirect methds ' in theology.1 To my knowledge there has been little analysis, beyond incidental treatment, of Rahner's scattered references to these methods.2 In the following pages I hope (...) to remedy this gap, and argue for two interdependent theses : First, by construing Rahner's own theological practice in the light of his remarks on the indirect methods, an apologetic method can be discerned which could prove useful for contemporary theology. Second, reading Rahner from this perspective indicates that his apologetic method is much more situation-relative and occasionalist than has generally been recognized hitherto. Two Kinds of Apologetics A quick sketch of some aspects of the present theological scene will help make these theses a little clearer and provide some cate1 My discussion of the indirect methods is based primarily upon the following sources: Theological Investigations (New York: Crossroad, 1961-1982) (cited in the text as TI), vol. 6, " A Small Question Regarding the Contemporary Pluralism in the Intellectual Situation of Catholic and the Church", pp. 21-30; vol. 11, "Reflections on Methodology in Theology", pp. 68-114; vol. 16, "A New Task for Theology". Foundations of Christian Faith (New York: Crossroad, 1978) (henceforth cited as FCF), introduction, pp. 1-23, et passim. 2 See e.g., Anne Carr, The Theological Method of Karl Rahner (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1977), pp. 267-9; Francis S. Fiorenza, Foundational Theology: Jesus and the Church (New York: Crossroad, 1984) (cited as Fiorenza), p. 93. Both these interpreters consider the indirect methods to be synonymous with the transcendental method. They then interpret the former in terms of the latter, misguidedly, I will argue. 613 614 NICHOLAS M. HEALY gories for the following discussion. According to William Placher,8 the contemporary situation in North American theology is often characterized as one in which two rival models of theology are dominant, the revisionist and the post-liberal (Placher, 17-19). Placher discusses many aspects of each model; here I want to look only at those features which bear upon their different conceptions of the nature of apologetics. According to David Tracy, a leading practitioner of the revisionist model, theology in all its forms must be " determined by a relentless drive to genuine publicness ".4 In order to maintain its public character, theology, like any discipline, must develop a preliminary systematic argument by which to ground its possibility and to ·establish its claims to truth and meaningfulness. This initial apologetics uses universal categories and proceeds in accordance with general criteria, functioning in terms, that is, which " all reasonable persons, whether ' religiously involved ' or not, can recognize as reasonable" (Tracy, 57). Usually it takes the form of a foundational explanatory theory of religious discourse which appeals to the universal nature of the deep structures of religious experience. This general theory of religion provides criteria for the subsequent theology, thereby maintaining the latter's relevance for the general, non-Christian public. The theological method considered appropriate is one which attempts systematically to correlate Christian-specific claims with the deep structures of human experience.5 The post-liberal model, by comparison, is more concerned to preserve Christian identity than to maintain the publicness of Christian discourse. The task of theology is not primarily the apologetic one of justifying Christianity to a non-Christian puba Unapologetic Theology: A Christian Voice in a Pluralistic Conversation (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989) (cited as Placher). 4 David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism (New York: Crossroad, 1981), p. 31 (cited as Tracy). 5 See the analyses in, e.g., George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984), chapter 2; and Ronald F. Thiemann, Revelation and Theology: The Gospel as Narrated Promise (Notre Dame: U. of N. D. Press, 1985), chapter 4. KARL RAHNER AS AN AD HOC APOLOGIST 615 lie. Instead the theologian should critically " describe and redescribe the character and relationship of Christian beliefs and... (shrink)

Next SectionFollowing the influential Gifford and Reith lectures by Onora O’Neill, this paper explores further the paradigm of individual autonomy which has been so dominant in bioethics until recently and concurs that it is an aberrant application and that conceptions of individual autonomy cannot provide a sufficient and convincing starting point for ethics within medical practice. We suggest that revision of the operational definition of patient autonomy is required for the twenty first century. We follow O’Neill in recommending a principled (...) version of patient autonomy, which for us involves the provision of sufficient and understandable information and space for patients, who have the capacity to make a settled choice about medical interventions on themselves, to do so responsibly in a manner considerate to others. We test it against the patient–doctor relationship in which each fully respects the autonomy of the other based on an unspoken covenant and bilateral trust between the doctor and patient. Indeed we consider that the dominance of the individual autonomy paradigm harmed that relationship. Although it seems to eliminate any residue of medical paternalism we suggest that it has tended to replace it with an equally (or possibly even more) unacceptable bioethical paternalism. In addition it may, for example, lead some doctors to consider mistakenly that unthinking acquiescence to a requested intervention against their clinical judgement is honouring “patient autonomy” when it is, in fact, abrogation of their duty as doctors. (shrink)

The functioning of a subject in a changing environment is most effective from the point of view of survival if the subject can form, maintain and use internal representations of the external world for decision-making. These representations are also called reflection in a broad sense. Using it, one can win in reflexive games since an internal representation of the enemy allows predicting their future moves. The goal is to assess the reflexive potential of heuristic model objects – artificial neural networks (...) – in the reflexive games “Even-Odd” (or “Matching pennies”) and “Rock-Paper-Scissors”. We used homogeneous fully connected neural networks of small sizes (from 8 to 45 neurons). Games were played between neural networks with different configurations and parameters (size, step size for modifying weight coefficients). A set of reflexivity criteria is presented, corresponding to different levels of consideration: neuronal, behavioral, formal. The transitivity of formal success in the game is shown. The most successful configurations, however, may not meet other criteria of reflexivity. We hypothesize that the best compliance with the criteria and, as a consequence, universal success in reflection tasks is achievable for heterogeneous configurations with a structure in which the formation of hierarchical systems of attractors is possible. (shrink)

The essays in this book offer an in-depth exploration of value theory. Portions examine the theoretical foundations of values and valuation exploring the rational groundwork for judgments. Other aspects, appealing to value distinctions of inherent, intrinsic, and instrumental, bring to light matters of aesthetic, social political, ethical, and ontological issues.

This study presents an empirical investigation of the ethical perceptions of the future managers - Turkish university students majoring in the Business Administration and Industrial Engineering departments of selected public and private Turkish universities - with a special emphasis on gender. The perceptions of the university students pertaining to the business world, the behaviors of employees, and the factors leading to unethical behavior are analyzed. The statistically significant differences reveal that female students have more ethical perceptions about the Turkish business (...) climate, behavior of employees, and the ethicalness of the behavior of the employees in comparison with their male counterparts. (shrink)

The meaning of the once widely used term the Gibbs Free Energy in terms of available work energy is perfectly illustrated for chemical reactions by the Van’t Hoff Equilibrium Box. Combining this with DeDonder’s extent of reaction variable and using the reaction of $$\hbox {NH}_3$$ to $$\hbox {H}_2$$ and $$\hbox {N}_2$$ at $$200^{\circ }\hbox {C}$$ as an example shows the difference between total work energy and available work energy, and in addition allows calculation of the equilibrium composition, demonstration of the (...) minimum in the Gibbs energy curve, and the standard relationship between $$\Delta _\textrm{r}G^{\circ }$$ and $$\ln {K}$$. (shrink)

For thousands of years, religion through the universal system of its values ​​actively influenced the formation of the worldview in all its most important aspects, including in purely scientific, helping or, conversely, interfering with the actualization of the spiritual and practical potential of culture. And although intensive scientific and technological development significantly influenced the fate of religion itself, leading to a "re-evaluation" of its individual values, the latter did not lose their own, without exaggeration, a leading role in the life (...) of man and society. The question of the meaning of religious values, their unique significance, is still important. It is possible that even today it is even more relevant than in previous years. (shrink)

Individual and Society in Buddhism. W. G. Weeraratne. Metro Printers Ltd., Colombo. 101pp £2.

In _Violence and Civility_, Étienne Balibar boldly confronts the insidious causes of violence, racism, nationalism, and ethnic cleansing worldwide, as well as mass poverty and dispossession. Through a novel synthesis of theory and empirical studies of contemporary violence, the acclaimed thinker pushes past the limits of political philosophy to reconceive war, revolution, sovereignty, and class. Through the pathbreaking thought of Derrida, Balibar builds a topography of cruelty converted into extremism by ideology, juxtaposing its subjective forms and its objective manifestations. Engaging (...) with Marx, Hegel, Hobbes, Clausewitz, Schmitt, and Luxemburg, Balibar introduces a new, productive understanding of politics as antiviolence and a fresh approach to achieving and sustaining civility. Rooted in the principles of transformation and empowerment, this theory brings hope to a world increasingly divided even as it draws closer together. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein was born in 1889, son of parents of Jewish extraction but not Jewish religion. Asked how his family came by the name ‘Wittgenstein’ Ludwig said they had been court Jews to the princely family and so had taken the name when Jews were required by law to have European-style names. The father, Karl, was a Protestant, the mother a Catholic. The Jewish blood was sufficient to bring the family later on into danger under Hitler's Nuremberg Laws. They did (...) not think of themselves as Jews or belong to the Jewish community in Vienna. The children were brought up sort-of Catholic though so far as I know only the eldest, Hermine, towards the end of her life, took this seriously and made a profession of faith before friends and household. At 9 years of age Ludwig and Paul, a year or two older than Ludwig, talked together and decided that their religion was all nonsense. Paul became a pianist of some fame, but soon after his debut in Vienna he became a wounded prisoner on the Russian front and his arm was lopped off by a surgeon who did not know he was a pianist. (shrink)

The paper by Szasz is about mental illness and its meaning, and like Procrustes, who altered hapless travellers to fit his bed, Szasz changes the meanings of words and concepts to suit his themes.1 Refuting the existence of “mental illness”, he suggests that the term functions in an apotropaic sense. He submits that in this sense it is used to avert danger, protect society, and hence justify preventive detention of “dangerous” people.But his arguments misrepresent the precise meaning of the term (...) “apotropaic”, which is an adjective, defined in Webster’s, Chambers and the New Shorter Oxford dictionaries as averting or turning aside evil. It is possible that amulets and incantations ward off evil, in the same way as garlic repels vampires, but evil and danger are different concepts. Yet Szasz talks of using phrases like ‘“dangerousness to self and others’ as apotropaics to ward off dangers we fear”, and the word “evil” does not appear in his paper.I will argue that “dangerousness to self and others” and “psychiatric treatment” have a prosaic rather than an apotropaic function.The word “danger” is familiar rather than arcane, and includes many risks. A predatory paedophile is usually both dangerous and evil, but many dangerous people are not evil. For example, a child who plays with a box of matches is dangerous, as is a demented person who drives a car, or a schizophrenic who, acting on delusional beliefs, arms herself with a knife and roams the streets believing she is an avenging angel.Suppose …. (shrink)