In Absolute Music: The History of an Idea, author Mark Evan Bonds examines how writers have struggled to isolate the essence of music in ways that account for its profound effects on the human spirit. By carefully tracing the evolution of absolute music from Ancient Greece through the Middle Ages to twentieth-century America, Bonds provides the first comprehensive history of this pivotal concept, and provokes new thoughts on the essence of music and how this essence explains music's effect. (...) A long awaited book from one of the most respected senior scholars in the field. (shrink)

The 'Beethoven syndrome' is the inclination of listeners to hear music as the projection of a composer's inner self. This was a radically new way of listening that emerged after Beethoven's death. Beethoven's music was a catalyst for this change, but only in retrospect, for it was not until after his death that listeners began to hear composers--and not just Beethoven--in their works, particularly in their instrumental music. The Beethoven syndrome: hearing music as autobiography traces the rise, fall, and persistence (...) of this mode of listening from the middle of the eighteenth century to the present. Prior to 1830, composers and audiences alike operated within a framework of rhetoric in which the burden of intelligibility lay squarely on the composer, whose task it was to move listeners in a calculated way. But through a confluence of musical, philosophical, social, and economic changes, the paradigm of expressive objectivity gave way to one of subjectivity in the years around 1830. The framework of rhetoric thus yielded to a framework of hermeneutics: concert-goers no longer perceived composers as orators but as oracles to be deciphered. In the wake of World War I, however, the aesthetics of 'new objectivity' marked a return not only to certain stylistic features of eighteenth-century music but also to the earlier concept of expression itself. Objectivity would become the cornerstone of the high modernist aesthetic that dominated the century's middle decades. Masterfully citing a broad array of source material from composers, critics, theorists, and philosophers, Mark Evan Bonds's engaging study reveals how perceptions of subjective expression have endured, leading to the present era of mixed and often conflicting paradigms of listening"--Dust jacket flap. (shrink)

R J W Evans: Political Chronology; IntroductionJan Rychlík: Czech-Slovak Relations in Czechoslovakia, 1918-39Eagle Glassheim: Ambivalent Capitalists: The Roots of Fascist Ideology among Bohemian Nobles, 1880-1938Melissa Feinberg: The New 'Woman Question': Gender, Nation, and Citizenship in the First Czechoslovak RepublicRobert B. Pynsent: The Literary Representation of the Czechoslovak 'Legions' in RussiaCatherine Albrecht: Economic Nationalism in the Sudetenland, 1918-38R.J.W. Evans: Hungarians, Czechs and Slovaks: Some Mutual Perceptions, 1900-50Mark Cornwall: 'A Leap into Ice-Cold Water': the Manoeuvres of the Henlein Movement in Czechoslovakia, 1933-8Vít (...) Smetana: Old Wine in New Bottles? British Policy towards Czechoslovakia, 1938-9 and 1947-8Tatjana Tönsmeyer: The German Advisers in Slovakia, 1939-45: Conflict or Co-Operation?Mark Dimond: The Sokol and Czech Nationalism, 1918-48Jiri Kocian: The Czechs versus the Slovaks: Bilateral Relations, 1944-8Zdenk Radvanovský: The Transfer of Czechoslovakia's Germans and its Impact in the Border Region after the Second World WarKeith Robbins: Britain and Munich Reconsidered: A Personal Historical Journey. (shrink)

BondsMark Evan, Absolute Music: The History of an Idea, Oxford: OUP, 2014. pp. 375. £23.99.

I would like to thank the Editors of the British Journal of Aesthetics for organizing this symposium and the participants for their thoughtful comments. It is gratifying to see that my book has elicited such a wide range of responses.

Although form is one of the most commonly used terms in music interpretation, it remains one of the most ambiguous. This study explores evolving ideas of musical form from a historical perspective and sheds light on current conceptualizations of music.

Health care is transitioning from genetics to genomics, in which single-gene testing for diagnosis is being replaced by multi-gene panels, genome-wide sequencing, and other multi-genic tests for disease diagnosis, prediction, prognosis, and treatment. This health care transition is spurring a new set of increased or novel liability risks for health care providers and test laboratories. This article describes this transition in both medical care and liability, and addresses 11 areas of potential increased or novel liability risk, offering recommendations to both (...) health care and legal actors to address and manage those liability risks. (shrink)

The dominant paradigm of experiments in the social and behavioral sciences views an experiment as a test of a theory, where the theory is assumed to generalize beyond the experiment's specific conditions. According to this view, which Alan Newell once characterized as “playing twenty questions with nature,” theory is advanced one experiment at a time, and the integration of disparate findings is assumed to happen via the scientific publishing process. In this article, we argue that the process of integration is (...) at best inefficient, and at worst it does not, in fact, occur. We further show that the challenge of integration cannot be adequately addressed by recently proposed reforms that focus on the reliability and replicability of individual findings, nor simply by conducting more or larger experiments. Rather, the problem arises from the imprecise nature of social and behavioral theories and, consequently, a lack of commensurability across experiments conducted under different conditions. Therefore, researchers must fundamentally rethink how they design experiments and how the experiments relate to theory. We specifically describe an alternative framework, integrative experiment design, which intrinsically promotes commensurability and continuous integration of knowledge. In this paradigm, researchers explicitly map the design space of possible experiments associated with a given research question, embracing many potentially relevant theories rather than focusing on just one. Researchers then iteratively generate theories and test them with experiments explicitly sampled from the design space, allowing results to be integrated across experiments. Given recent methodological and technological developments, we conclude that this approach is feasible and would generate more-reliable, more-cumulative empirical and theoretical knowledge than the current paradigm – and with far greater efficiency. (shrink)

Commentaries on the target article offer diverse perspectives on integrative experiment design. Our responses engage three themes: (1) Disputes of our characterization of the problem, (2) skepticism toward our proposed solution, and (3) endorsement of the solution, with accompanying discussions of its implementation in existing work and its potential for other domains. Collectively, the commentaries enhance our confidence in the promise and viability of integrative experiment design, while highlighting important considerations about how it is used.

It is time to bring the rich resources of these traditions into the contemporary debate about the nature of self. This volume is the first of its kind.

In debates over the regulation of communication related to dual-use research, the risks that such communication creates must be weighed against against the value of scientific autonomy. The censorship of such communication seems justifiable in certain cases, given the potentially catastrophic applications of some dual-use research. This conclusion however, gives rise to another kind of danger: that regulators will use overly simplistic cost-benefit analysis to rationalize excessive regulation of scientific research. In response to this, we show how institutional design principles (...) and normative frameworks from free speech theory can be used to help extend the argument for regulating dangerous dual-use research beyond overly simplistic cost-benefit reasoning, but without reverting to an implausibly absolutist view of scientific autonomy. (shrink)

Mobile devices with health apps, direct-to-consumer genetic testing, crowd-sourced information, and other data sources have enabled research by new classes of researchers. Independent researchers, citizen scientists, patient-directed researchers, self-experimenters, and others are not covered by federal research regulations because they are not recipients of federal financial assistance or conducting research in anticipation of a submission to the FDA for approval of a new drug or medical device. This article addresses the difficult policy challenge of promoting the welfare and interests of (...) research participants, as well as the public, in the absence of regulatory requirements and without discouraging independent, innovative scientific inquiry. The article recommends a series of measures, including education, consultation, transparency, self-governance, and regulation to strike the appropriate balance. (shrink)

The inclusion of jus post bellum in just war theory may be justified. But, according to Evans, it becomes problematic when confronted with tenets of "just occupation," namely that sovereignty or self-determination should be restored to the occupied people as soon as is reasonably possible.

This collection of essays represents a sample of the work carried out on the various urgent issues arising from the contemporary "war in terror" by researchers in the Department of Politics and International Relations, Swansea University UK and/or who attended the 2005 conference on politics and ethics at the University of Southern Mississippi (Gulf Coast). Certain specific topics are obviously prompted by this general theme; others dealt with in this book are perhaps not as obviously connected to it - though (...) they are no less important for that. This book is therefore intended to cover some ground in both types of topic and it is to be hoped that its contents will stimulate further reflection and writing on the deep controversies that recent events in world politics have stoked. However misguided much of the debate has been, many have contended that the present era is witnessing a "clash of civilisations", in which fundamentally different value-systems confront each other with their mutually opposed and antagonistic views of the world. This position often undergirds a moral relativism, which denies that there are any universal values: all we have, according to this outlook, are the different values of different cultures seeking (insofar as they "clash") to impose themselves on others. In the first essay, James Beard counters this argument with a case for what he calls a "thin universalism", a relatively sparse but powerful set of fundamental values which can credibly be demonstrated to have universal application.Many who supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq now oppose it, not on the grounds that they were wrong at the outset but that hindsight and subsequent events have given them new reasons to revise their judgements. This has led some to think that arguments about whether a war is just, and justified, can very often only be satisfactorily made "down the line", thus excusing initial support for a conflict which thereafter goes badly wrong. In her article, Christine Stender reminds us of many of the considerations that were available in 2003 itself which readily led to just-war arguments against launching the invasion at the time. It may be easy for the passage of time to cause us to forget those factors. But, given that we can only become more adept at making just-war judgements by reflecting on past experience, it is crucial not to let them disappear in the morass of subsequent experience. Arguably, the Abu Ghraib scandal did more than any other single event to undermine what moral credibility the American occupation of Iraq ever had. It certainly raised acute questions about the conception of "virtue" that the role of combatant in war ought to necessitate and, in his essay, J. Joseph Miller subjects this issue to close philosophical scrutiny, with particular focus on the ethics of torture. Traditional just war theory has been composed of two elements: jus ad bellum, which sets out moral criteria which may sanction the resort to war, and jus in bello, which provides moral rules for its actual conduct. Recent events, and in particular the tragically chaotic situation of post-invasion Iraq, have helped to make the case for a third element: jus post bellum, which deals with the rights and responsibilities of just combatants with respect to the pursuit of a just peace once conflict has ended. This remains an under-researched area and, in their article, Mark Evans and Christine Stender introduce a wide-ranging set of considerations towards the construction of an adequate account of jus post bellum. A concept that has surged to the fore in recent times has been that of a "failed state", which has been invoked as part of arguments for "humanitarian intervention." (Afghanistan is perhaps the most obvious and pertinent example.) It is, however, a highly contentious concept and many think it has nothing other than ideological, polemical value. Whilst admitting that it is prone to such (mis)use, Mark Evans argues, in his essay, that it can be given a determinate and useful normative content, even if it does not necessarily sanction the kind of foreign policies which certain Western leaders have thought it does. Most liberal democracies have responded to the "terror threat" by introducing emergency legislation, or by otherwise suspending in some way what they would "ordinarily" have regarded as inviolable basic liberties and legal safeguards. Nazeer Patel argues that this dangerously undercuts the moral authority that these states claim for themselves and urges that we rethink how liberal democracy should appropriately respond to terrorism; it may take courage not to "overreact" against it, but he plausibly suggests a more measured and morally preferable attitude for it to take. Finally, in her essay, Claire Delisle focuses on one of the more bitter conflicts within a liberal democracy of recent times which has, it seems, been resolved in favour of peaceful accommodation: that between the Nationalist and Unionist communities in the north of Ireland/Ulster. The full story of how this peace became possible has yet to be fully told, and she adds a vital element to the tale, of how incarcerated combatants developed attitudes, strategies and a culture which built the foundations for a process that eventually brought "The Troubles" to what, it is to be hoped, is a permanent end. With the exception of the editor's contributions, the research which is published here is the product of the intellectual labours of scholars who are in the early stages of their careers. This volume is, therefore, a compendium of work in progress and the authors hope that this publication will help to further their reflections; certainly, the issues with which they engage are a long way indeed from being exhausted in terms of the scholarly attention they demand. Obviously, their appearance together in the same volume should not be taken to imply that any of the contributors endorse anything of what any of the others argue. (shrink)

Within metaphysics, there are two competing theories of Laws of Nature. On one account, the Regularity Theory, Laws of Nature are statements of the uniformities or regularities in the world; they are mere descriptions of the way the world is. On the other account, the Necessitarian Theory, Laws of Nature are the “principles” which govern the natural phenomena of the world. That is, the natural world “obeys” the Laws of Nature. This seemingly innocuous difference marks one of the most profound (...) gulfs within contemporary philosophy, and has quite unexpected, and wide-ranging, implications. (shrink)

This special thematic issue of The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy brings together a cross-cultural set of scholars from Asia, Europe, and North America critically to explore foundational questions of familial authority and the implications of such findings for organ procurement policies designed to increase access to transplantation. The substantial disparity between the available supply of human organs and demand for organ transplantation creates significant pressure to manipulate public policy to increase organ procurement. As the articles in this issue explore, (...) however, even if well intentioned, the desire to maximize organ procurement does not justify undermining foundational elements of human flourishing, such as the family. While defending at times quite different understandings of autonomy, informed consent, and familial authority, each author makes clear that a principled appreciation of the family is necessary. Otherwise, health care practice will treat the family in a cynical and instrumental fashion unlikely to support social or individual good. (shrink)

Understanding individual differences in cognitive performance is an important part of understanding how variations in underlying cognitive processes can result in variations in task performance. However, the exploration of individual differences in the components of the decision process—such as cognitive processing speed, response caution, and motor execution speed—in previous research has been limited. Here, we assess the heritability of the components of the decision process, with heritability having been a common aspect of individual differences research within other areas of cognition. (...) Importantly, a limitation of previous work on cognitive heritability is the underlying assumption that variability in response times solely reflects variability in the speed of cognitive processing. This assumption has been problematic in other domains, due to the confounding effects of caution and motor execution speed on observed response times. We extend a cognitive model of decision‐making to account for relatedness structure in a twin study paradigm. This approach can separately quantify different contributions to the heritability of response time. Using data from the Human Connectome Project, we find strong evidence for the heritability of response caution, and more ambiguous evidence for the heritability of cognitive processing speed and motor execution speed. Our study suggests that the assumption made in previous studies—that the heritability of cognitive ability is based on cognitive processing speed—may be incorrect. More generally, our methodology provides a useful avenue for future research in complex data that aims to analyze cognitive traits across different sources of related data, whether the relation is between people, tasks, experimental phases, or methods of measurement. (shrink)

A carpet vendor has to measure her customer's living room for some new broadloom. She has forgotten her tape measure, but does have a meterstick. She lays the meterstick on the floor, snug up against the wall, with the left edge of the stick in one corner of the room. She then makes a pencil mark at the right edge. Next she shifts the stick right until the left edge of the stick is at her mark, and again (...) marks the right edge. She does this three times, but then finds that less than a full length remains to be measured. She turns the stick around so that the zero is now at the right side and lays it in the right corner and notes that her last pencil mark is at 70 cm. She concludes that the wall she is measuring is 3.7 meters in length. She then measures the opposite wall and concludes that it, too, is 3.7 meters in length. She then repeats the process for the remaining two opposite walls, and finds that they each measure 4.1 meters. To see if the room is rectangular, she runs a piece of twine from one corner to its opposite, pulls the twine taut and then cuts it to fit exactly. She then uses the same piece of twine on the other two corners to see if they are the same distance apart as the first two. The twine fits exactly. On the basis of these measurements, she.. (shrink)

We show that the N₀-categorical structures produced by Hrushovski's predimension construction with a control function fit neatly into Shelah's $SOP_n $ hierarchy: if they are not simple, then they have SOP₃ and NSOP₄. We also show that structures produced without using a control function can be undecidable and have SOP.

In his provocative definition of bullshit as “indifference to the truth”, Harry Frankfurt contentiously states that democracy is particularly prone to this deformity of discourse because of “the widespread conviction that it is the responsibility of a citizen in a democracy to have opinions about everything, or at least everything that pertains to the conduct of his country’s affairs.” I provide an exposition of this claim that Frankfurt does not himself give and I contend that he has identified an important (...) problem with democratic deliberation. This is an argument about, not against, democracy and it is one which gives pause over the sanguine assumptions of much radical, “deliberative” democratic theory that this phenomenon will not be significantly present in an enhanced democracy. A suggestionabout the responsibilities of political philosophers in helping a democratic citizenry to tackle the problem is floated for future elaboration. (shrink)

Oxidative damage to DNA appears to be a factor in cancer, yet explanations for why highly elevated levels of such lesions do not always result in cancer remain elusive. Much of the genome is non‐coding and lesions in these regions might be expected to have little biological effect, an inference supported by observations that there is preferential repair of coding sequences. RNA has an important coding function in protein synthesis, and yet the consequences of RNA oxidation are largely unknown. Some (...) non‐coding nucleic acid is functional, e.g. promoters, and damage to these sequences may well have biological consequences. Similarly, oxidative damage to DNA may promote microsatellite instability, inhibit methylation and accelerate telomere shortening. DNA repair appears pivotal to the maintenance of genome integrity, and genetic alterations in repair capacity, due to single nucleotide polymorphisms or mutation, may account for inter‐individual differences in cancer susceptibility. This review will survey these aspects of oxidative damage to nucleic acids and their implication for disease. BioEssays 26:533–542, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Rousseau's political thought has been accredited with major influence upon subsequent radical democratic thinking, but in fact its contradictions and obscurities render the real import of its legacy deeply ambiguous. This article aims to identify its central message through clarification of the Social Contract's presuppositions and prescriptions, interpreted in the light of his other writings. Although the modernity of his thought is evident in the priority he gives to individual freedom, Rousseau's disturbing novelty lies in his belief that this can (...) only be reconciled with the interests of political community when people are, by contemporary standards, severely underdeveloped in their individuality. For him, modern socialization irreversibly blocks this reconciliation and compounds the oppression of individuals by distorting their authentic identities. Thus, Rousseau ought to be seen as offering nothing but a critique of any aspiration to salvage genuine liberty in society now. The article urges a redefinition of his contribution to political thought and depicts him as an early articulator of powerful challenges to the main aims of contractarian and democratic theory, which the latter is still unwisely apt to ignore. (shrink)

In recent times, ‘just war’ discourse has become unfortunately associated, in the minds of some, with the idea of the forcible promotion or imposition of democracy as a legitimate just cause. It would thus be understandable if supporters of just war theory were to disavow any particular linkage of its tenets with the democratic ideal. However, while certainly not endorsing the stated cause, this article contends that the theory in its most plausible and attractive form does exhibit certain biases towards (...) the ideal, in both jus ad bellum and jus post bellum. If these biases fall short of shackling the theory to claims such as ‘only democracies can fight just wars’, they may nevertheless place taxing justificatory burdens on a non-democracy's claim to have a war-waging right and on non-democratic conceptions of the just peace that should ideally follow a just war. (shrink)

U članku se, prije svega, tvrdi da većina odgojne prakse u liberalno-demokratskom društvu službeno teži promicanju, kako ga nazivam, ‘ideala demokratskog karaktera’ za građane budućnosti. On utjelovljuje deweyjevsko uvjerenje da demokracija nije samo oblik političke zajednice nego i način življenja u kojem se pojedinci mogu razvijati u socijalno pravednim okolnostima. Zahtjevna priroda tog ideala se može činiti problematičnom, no nastojat ću pokazati da tomu nije slučaj. Ono što jest problem je omjer u kojem aktualna teorija i praksa odgoja odudara od (...) ideala, bez obzira na službene prigovore tom idealu. Deweyjevski uvidi u poveznice između oblika odgoja i oblika društva ukazuju da suvremena izdaja ili napuštanje ideala demokratskog karaktera iziskuje radikalnu kritiku stanja u kojem razmatranja suvremene kapitalističke ekonomije podrivaju široko prihvaćene težnje za dobrim životom i odgojem koji pridonosi ostvarenju tih težnji. (shrink)

This article considers the potential for a researcher to use their own creative practice as a method of data collection. Much of the published material in this field focuses on more theoretical positions, with limited use being made of specific PhDs that illustrate the context in which practice was undertaken by the researcher. It explores strategies for data collection and researcher motivation during what the author identifies as "researcher practice." This is achieved through the use of three PhD case studies. (...) Methods of data collection focus on: the use of output from practice for quantitative data collection, the use of output from practice for qualitative data collection, and the use of output from practice for data translation. The article discusses the methodologies employed in the case studies to identify themes which enable the definition of a generic researcher practitioner methodology. It notes the significance of creative practice in support of data collection and the differences between researcher practice and commercial practice, and emphasises the contribution of researcher practice towards personal motivation. (shrink)

Time and Performer Training addresses the importance and centrality of time and temporality to the practices, processes and conceptual thinking of performer training. Notions of time are embedded in almost every aspect of performer training, and so contributors to this book look at: age/aging and children in the training context how training impacts over a lifetime the duration of training and the impact of training regimes over time concepts of timing and the 'right' time how time is viewed from a (...) range of international training perspectives collectives, ensembles and fashions in training, their decay or endurance. Through focusing on time and the temporal in performer training, this book offers innovative ways of integrating research into studio practices. It also steps out beyond the more traditional places of training to open up time in relation to contested training practices that take place online, in festival spaces and in folk or amateur practices. Ideal for both instructors and students, each section of this well-illustrated book follows a thematic structure and includes full-length chapters alongside shorter provocations. Featuring contributions from an international range of authors who draw on their backgrounds as artists, scholars and teachers, Time and Performer Training is a major step in our understanding of how time affects the preparation for performance. (shrink)

BackgroundThe Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute is obligated to peer review and to post publicly “Final Research Reports” of all funded projects. PCORI peer review emphasizes adherence to PCORI’s Methodology Standards and principles of ethical scientific communication. During the peer review process, reviewers and editors seek to ensure that results are presented objectively and interpreted appropriately, e.g., free of spin.MethodsTwo independent raters assessed PCORI peer review feedback sent to authors. We calculated the proportion of reports in which spin was identified during (...) peer review, and the types of spin identified. We included reports submitted by April 2018 with at least one associated journal article. The same raters then assessed whether authors addressed reviewers’ comments about spin. The raters also assessed whether spin identified during PCORI peer review was present in related journal articles.ResultsWe included 64 PCORI-funded projects. Peer reviewers or editors identified spin in 55/64 submitted research reports. Types of spin included reporting bias, inappropriate interpretation, inappropriate extrapolation of results, and inappropriate attribution of causality. Authors addressed comments about spin related to 47/55 of the reports.Of 110 associated journal articles, PCORI comments about spin were potentially applicable to 44/110 articles, of which 27/44 contained the same spin that was identified in the PCORI research report. The proportion of articles with spin was similar for articles accepted before and after PCORI peer review.DiscussionJust as spin is common in journal articles and press releases, we found that most reports submitted to PCORI included spin. While most spin was mitigated during the funder’s peer review process, we found no evidence that review of PCORI reports influenced spin in journal articles. Funders could explore interventions aimed at reducing spin in published articles of studies they support. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that individuals in modern societies can share a general appreciation of the contingency of moral and political engagement without endangering these purposeful attachments. Depending upon the acceptance of various cognitive conventions, social practices and institutions cannot be sustained by appeals to advantage alone, but these conventions do not demand ontological commitment. Transparent fictions rather than ideological illusions can suffice to sustain valued forms of life. In contrast to Rorty's ironic society in which "only the intellectuals (...) would be ironists", we suggest the benign disillusionment can characterize the public generally. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: This article discusses, principally from an English perspective, globalisation, global citizenship and two forms of education relevant to those developments (global education and citizenship education). We describe what citizenship has meant inside one nation state and ask what citizenship means, and could mean, in a globalising world. By comparing the natures of citizenship education and global education, as experienced principally in England during, approxim-ately, the last three decades, we seek to develop a clearer understanding of what has been done (...) and what might be done in the future in order to develop education for global citizenship. We suggest that up to this point there have been significant differences between the characterisations that have been developed for global education and citizenship education. These differences are revealed through an examination of three areas: focus and origins; the attitude of the government and significant others; and the adoption of pedagogical approaches. We suggest that it would be useful to look beyond old barriers that have separated citizenship education and global education and to form a new global citizenship education. Their separation has in the past only perpetuated the old understandings of citizenship and constructed a constrained view of global education. (shrink)

Psychiatry is rapidly adopting digital phenotyping and artificial intelligence/machine learning tools to study mental illness based on tracking participants’ locations, online activity, phone and text message usage, heart rate, sleep, physical activity, and more. Existing ethical frameworks for return of individual research results (IRRs) are inadequate to guide researchers for when, if, and how to return this unprecedented number of potentially sensitive results about each participant’s real-world behavior. To address this gap, we convened an interdisciplinary expert working group, supported by (...) a National Institute of Mental Health grant. Building on established guidelines and the emerging norm of returning results in participant-centered research, we present a novel framework specific to the ethical, legal, and social implications of returning IRRs in digital phenotyping research. Our framework offers researchers, clinicians, and Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) urgently needed guidance, and the principles developed here in the context of psychiatry will be readily adaptable to other therapeutic areas. (shrink)

Population-level biomedical research offers new opportunities to improve population health, but also raises new challenges to traditional systems of research governance and ethical oversight. Partly in response to these challenges, various models of public involvement in research are being introduced. Yet, the ways in which public involvement should meet governance challenges are not well understood. We conducted a qualitative study with 36 experts and stakeholders using the World Café method to identify key governance challenges and explore how public involvement can (...) meet these challenges. This brief report discusses four cross-cutting themes from the study: the need to move beyond individual consent; issues in benefit and data sharing; the challenge of delineating and understanding publics; and the goal of clarifying justifications for public involvement. The report aims to provide a starting point for making sense of the relationship between public involvement and the governance of population-level biomedical research, showing connections, potential solutions and issues arising at their intersection. We suggest that, in population-level biomedical research, there is a pressing need for a shift away from conventional governance frameworks focused on the individual and towards a focus on collectives, as well as to foreground ethical issues around social justice and develop ways to address cultural diversity, value pluralism and competing stakeholder interests. There are many unresolved questions around how this shift could be realised, but these unresolved questions should form the basis for developing justificatory accounts and frameworks for suitable collective models of public involvement in population-level biomedical research governance. (shrink)

Drawing on a landscape analysis of existing data-sharing initiatives, in-depth interviews with expert stakeholders, and public deliberations with community advisory panels across the U.S., we describe features of the evolving medical information commons. We identify participant-centricity and trustworthiness as the most important features of an MIC and discuss the implications for those seeking to create a sustainable, useful, and widely available collection of linked resources for research and other purposes.

Scholars and professional organizations in bioethics describe various approaches to “quality assessment” in clinical ethics. Although much of this work represents significant contributions to the literature, it is not clear that there is a robust and shared understanding of what constitutes “quality” in clinical ethics, what activities should be measured when tracking clinical ethics work, and what metrics should be used when measuring those activities. Further, even the most robust quality assessment efforts to date are idiosyncratic, in that they represent (...) evaluation of single activities or domains of clinical ethics activities, or a range of activities at a single hospital or healthcare system. Countering this trend, in this article we propose a framework for moving beyond our current ways of understanding clinical ethics quality, toward comprehensive quality assessment. We first describe a way to conceptualize quality assessment as a process of measuring disparate, isolated work activities; then, we describe quality assessment in terms of tracking interconnected work activities holistically, across different levels of assessment. We conclude by inviting future efforts in quality improvement to adopt a comprehensive approach to quality assessment into their improvement practices, and offer recommendations for how the field might move in this direction. (shrink)