Three experiments investigated the relationship between subjective experience and attentional lapses during sustained attention. These experiments employed two measures of subjective experience to examine how differences in awareness correspond to variations in both task performance and psycho-physiological measures . This series of experiments examine these phenomena during the Sustained Attention to Response Task . The results suggest we can dissociate between two components of subjective experience during sustained attention: task unrelated thought which corresponds to an absent minded disengagement from the (...) task and a pre-occupation with one's task performance that seems to be best conceptualised as a strategic attempt to deploy attentional resources in response to a perception of environmental demands which exceed ones ability to perform the task. The implications of these findings for our understanding of how awareness is maintained on task relevant material during periods of sustained attention are discussed. (shrink)

Background: The traditional approach to resolving ethics concerns may not address underlying organisational issues involved in the evolution of these concerns. This represents a missed opportunity to improve quality of care “upstream”. The purpose of this study was to understand better which organisational issues may contribute to ethics concerns. Methods: Directed content analysis was used to review ethics consultation notes from an academic children’s hospital from 1996 to 2006 (N = 71). The analysis utilised 18 categories of organisational issues derived (...) and modified from published quality improvement protocols. Results: Organisational issues were identified in 68 of the 71 (96%) ethics consult notes across a range of patient settings and reasons for consultation. Thirteen of the 18 categories of organisational issues were identified and there was a median of two organisational issues per consult note. The most frequently identified organisational issues were informal organisational culture (eg, collective practices and approaches to situations with ethical dimensions that are not guided by policy), policies and procedures (eg, staff knows policy and/or procedural guidelines for an ethical concern but do not follow it) and communication (eg, communication about critical information, orders, or hand-offs repeatedly does not occur among services). Conclusions: Organisational issues contribute to ethical concerns that result in clinical ethics consults. Identifying and addressing organisational issues such as informal culture and communication may help decrease the recurrence of future similar ethics concerns. (shrink)

We show that if the weak compactness of a cardinal is made indestructible by means of any preparatory forcing of a certain general type, including any forcing naively resembling the Laver preparation, then the cardinal was originally supercompact. We then apply this theorem to show that the hypothesis of supercompactness is necessary for certain proof schemata.

It is widely agreed that a new conception of history was developed in the early nineteenth century: the past came to be seen in a new light, as did the way of studying the past. This article discusses the nature of this collective revision, focusing on one of its first and most important manifestations: Ranke's 1824 Geschichten der romanischen und germanischen Völker. It argues that, in Ranke's case, the driving force of the revision was religious, and that, subsequently, an understanding (...) of the nature of Ranke's religious attitude is vital to any interpretation of his historical revision. Being aesthetic-experiential rather than conceptual or "positive," this religious element is reflected throughout Ranke's enterprise, in source criticism and in historical representation no less than in the conception of cause and effect in the historical process. These three levels or aspects of the historical enterprise correspond to the experience of the past, and are connected by the essence of the experience: visual perception. The highly individual character of the enterprise, its foundation in sentiments and experiences of little persuasive force that only with difficulty can be brought into language at all, explains the paradoxical nature of the Rankean heritage. On the one hand, Ranke had a great and lasting impact; on the other hand, his approach was never re-utilized as a whole, only in its constituent parts—which, when not in the relationship Ranke had envisioned, took on a new and different character. This also suggests the difference between Ranke's revision and a new paradigm: whereas the latter is an exemplary solution providing binding regulations, the former is unrepeatable. (shrink)

This paper traces the development of parental rights to accept or to refuse treatment for a defective newborn infant in the United Kingdom and in the United States of America; its main purpose is to explore the common trends from which an acceptable policy may be derived. It is probable that the British law on parental decision-making in respect of infants suffering from Down's syndrome is to be found in the civil case of In Re B rather than in the (...) criminal case of R v Arthur. United States court decisions are strongly influenced by constitutional law and reflect the right to personal privacy. The position on each side of the Atlantic seems very similar but this similarity includes a sense of uncertainty as to legal responsibility. There is a case for agreed guidelines and a suggested format is offered for consideration. (shrink)

The sporadic nature of Alzheimer's disease argues for an environmental link that may drive AD pathogenesis; however, the triggering factors and the period of their action are unknown. Recent studies in rodents have shown that exposure to lead during brain development predetermined the expression and regulation of the amyloid precursor protein and its amyloidogenic beta-amyloid product in old age. Here, we report that the expression of AD-related genes [APP, BACE1 ] as well as their transcriptional regulator were elevated in aged (...) monkeys exposed to Pb as infants. Furthermore, developmental exposure to Pb altered the levels, characteristics, and intracellular distribution of Abeta staining and amyloid plaques in the frontal association cortex. These latent effects were accompanied by a decrease in DNA methyltransferase activity and higher levels of oxidative damage to DNA, indicating that epigenetic imprinting in early life influenced the expression of AD-related genes and promoted DNA damage and pathogenesis. These data suggest that AD pathogenesis is influenced by early life exposures and argue for both an environmental trigger and a developmental origin of AD. (shrink)

Editors’ note: These four interrelated discussions of the role of the cerebellum in coordinating emotional and higher cognitive functions developed out of a workshop presented by the four authors for the 2000 Conference of the Cognitive Science Society at the University of Pennsylvania. The four interrelated discussions explore the implications of the recent explosion of cerebellum research suggesting an expanded cerebellar role in higher cognitive functions as well as in the coordination of emotional functions with learning, logical thinking, perceptual consciousness, (...) and action planning. (shrink)

Altruistic donation of organs from living donors is widely accepted as a virtue and even encouraged as a duty. Selling organs, on the other hand, is highly controversial and banned in most countries. What is the Jewish legal position on these issues? In this review it is explained that altruistic donation is praiseworthy but in no way obligatory. Selling organs is a subject of rabbinic dispute among contemporary authorities.

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)

Modern cultivation has multiplied the classic sciences into families of fissionable specialities, whose individual methods and objects tend to be communicated less and less to the man of general culture and even to the specialist fellow traveller. One established means of restoring basic communication lies in the periodic exposition by a team of sympathetic experts of the problems, historic personalities and principles of solution of each family, so that concise, accurate reference is readily available both to the serious student and (...) to the enquiring colleague who may wish to grasp a point of research, theory or jargon without having to search for it precariously in the deceptive haystack of selective text-books, monographs and learned papers. This solution, however, is prodigal of resources, material and intellectual—only anguished editors know what toil underlies the serenity of the expert encyclopedia, with its alphabetical reference, succinct scholarship and up-to-date analysis of every minute point at issue. Convinced lovers of wisdom should quail less than others, perhaps, from this herculean task. In fact, while this century has seen some new philosophic dictionaries and a fair representation of philosophic topics in general encyclopedias, no specialised philosophic encyclopedia has appeared to continue the early enterprise of Baldwin’s Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology and of Hasting’s Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics. Now within two years has come the prodigious completion of a meticulous set of four Italian volumes, which survey the whole history and scope of philosophic and cognate science, and present the reviewer with a veritable embarras des richesses. (shrink)

The traces of real, that is, ancient, rival versions of Terence's lines are not so pronounced as of Plautus' lines. Professor Lindsay has drawn attention to a possible instance at Hec. 468 . Another seems to be Andr. 532 , if I am right in supposing that the text used by Donatus had ipsum Chremem. A trace of the variant survives in the unmetrical δ-setting ipsum obuiam Chremem DGL. The text of the other minuscule MSS. has ipsum obuiam. A is (...) not in evidence for this part of Andria. Had it too ipsum Chremem ? (shrink)

M. Marouzeau has re-directed attention to the peculiarity of Terentian versification by which a monosyllabic word is put at the end of the line, though it belongs, in point of sense, to the beginning of the next line. There is thus, for the copyist or ‘corrector’, a strong temptation to shift the little word to the beginning of the next line, or even to drop it altogether. Where scansion allows, the second course can be adopted without arousing any suspicions.