This paper proposes an ethical framework for rationing publicly financed health care. We begin by classifying alternative rationing criteria according to their ethical basis. We then examine the ethical arguments for four rationing criteria. These alternatives include rationing high technology services, non-basic services, services to patients who receive the least medical benefit, and services that are not equally available to all. We submit that a just health care system will not limit basic health care to persons unable to pay for (...) it. Furthermore, justice in health care requires limiting publicly-financed non-basic health care, striving for equality in access to basic health care, and relying on medical benefit to ration non-basic health care. (shrink)

History of civilization and human nature of Vietnam.

Author's answers to questions on Buddhist philosophy, posed to him by some foreign scholars.

Abstract Global climate change will have a strong impact on Nigeria, particularly on agricultural production and associated livelihoods. Although there is a growing scientific consensus about the impact of climate change, efforts so far in Nigeria to deal with these impacts are still rudimentary and not properly coordinated. There is little evidence of any pragmatic approach towards tracking climate change in order to develop an evidence base on which to formulate national adaptation strategies. Although Nigeria is not alone in this (...) regard, the paper asserts that National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy could help address this situation by guiding the integration of climate change adaptation into government policies, strategies, and programs, with particular focus on the most vulnerable groups and the agricultural sectors. There is an urgent need to adopt abatement strategies that will provide economic incentives to reduce the risk from disasters, such as developing agricultural practices that are more resilient to a changing climate. Content Type Journal Article Category Articles Pages 1-11 DOI 10.1007/s10806-011-9336-0 Authors N. A. Onyekuru, Ecosystems and Society Research Cluster, Department of Environment, University of York, York, UK Rob Marchant, Ecosystems and Society Research Cluster, Department of Environment, University of York, York, UK Journal Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics Online ISSN 1573-322X Print ISSN 1187-7863. (shrink)

Biography of Jiddu Krishnamurti, 1895-1986, Indian philosopher.

Debates about the concept of disease have traditionally been framed as a competition between two conflicting approaches: naturalism, on the one hand, and normativism or social constructivism, on the other. In this article, we lay the groundwork for a naturalistic form of social constructivism by dissociating the presumed link between value-free conceptions of disease and a broadly naturalistic approach; offering a naturalistic argument for a form of social constructivism; and suggesting avenues that strike us as especially promising for filling in (...) the details of an alternative approach and addressing the most obvious objections. (shrink)

Design: Qualitative interview study. Participants: Fifty-nine patients with a family history of cancer who attend a regional cancer genetics clinic in the UK were interviewed about their current and previous research experiences. Findings: Interviewees gave a range of explanations for research participation. These were categorised as social—research participation benefits the wider society by progressing science and improving treatment for everyone; familial—research participation may improve healthcare and benefit current or future generations of the participant’s family; and personal—research participation provides therapeutic or (...) non-therapeutic benefits for oneself. Conclusions: We discuss the distinction drawn between motives for research participation focused upon self and others, and observe that personal, social and familial motives can be seen as interdependent. For example, research participation that is undertaken to benefit others, particularly relatives, may also offer a number of personal benefits for self, such as enabling participants to feel that they have discharged their social or familial obligations. We argue for the need to move away from simple, static, individualised notions of research participation to a more complex, dynamic and inherently social account. (shrink)

In a first and most general approach to our topic, three questions are of especial importance: Does a country that has not yet really bid farewell to the style of life and thought under conditions of a fundamentalist, essentially clerical regime and state really need an ideology? What is ideology as a phenomenon, what functions does it fulfill objectively, and are these functions fading in modern society and in the foreseeable future? Finally, if after answering the first two questions we (...) nonetheless still opt for an integrative ideology for Russia-and that is this author's choice-then what qualities of this ideology would be most conducive to the country's renewal and resurgence, to the social effectiveness of its political and economic order, and to its competitiveness on the world markets of commodities, services, ideas, culture, and lifestyle? (shrink)

IntroductionExperimental research on animals has been guided by principles of the three Rs: reduction, refinement and replacement.1 Recently the fourth R—rehabilitation—has also been incorporated to enhance the welfare of animals that are used in research. With growing scientific curiosity and increasing research, animal use has anything but reduced despite the fact that modern technology has brought to fore many alternatives to animal use.2 ,3 There are many arguments for and against animal use. In India, there has been a proposal to (...) ban the use of animals for training and academic purposes, as reported in two major daily newspapers. This has evoked mixed reactions from the scientific community. We conducted this study to assess the awareness, attitudes and practices regarding the use of animals and their alternatives, in medical training and research amongst medical teachers and students.Study designA …. (shrink)

В книгу вошли расширенные версии докладов, представленных на конференции "Научная жизнь Северного Кавказа в условиях социально-политических трансформаций XX века", проведенная 24-26 сентября 2009 года. Для специалистов.

We investigate how a uniformly rotating frame is defined as the rest frame of an observer rotating with constant angular velocity Ω around the z axis of an inertial frame. Assuming this frame to be a Lorentz one, we second quantize a free massless scalar field in the rotating frame and obtain that creation-annihilation operators of the field are not the same as those of an inertial frame. This leads to a new vacuum state—a rotating vacuum. After this, introducing an (...) apparatus device coupled linearly with the field, we obtain that there is a strong correlation between the number of Trocheries-Takeno particles (in a given state) obtained via canonical quantization and the response function of the rotating detector. Finally, we analyze polarization effects in circular accelerators in the proper frame of the electron, making a connection with the inertial frame point of view. (shrink)

В издании подробно исследуется философское наследие четырех учителей дигамбарской ветви джайнизма.

Philosophical aspects of belief and ancestor worship in Southern Vietnam.