One of the major issues in the debate about the future of health care is how to keep costs under control while meeting growing demands for care. Addressing that, especially on an international scale, is far from easy. How are we to determine what the demands for care will most likely be? Even if it is not possible to estimate the future number of dependent elderly persons with any precision, it is hard to ignore the most probable scenario: a substantial (...) increase in the number of the oldest old. (shrink)

The UK Genethics Club was established in November 2001 in order to provide a national forum of ethics support for the profession of clinical genetics in the UK. The forum brings together health professionals, medical ethicists and lawyers and support is provided through detailed discussion of cases and sharing of good practice. Clinical genetics professionals had previously voiced concerns about making extremely difficult ethical decisions, with profound implications, in something of a vacuum. Professionals saw a lack of guidance in the (...) area and lack of time for discussion of difficult cases as reasons for this. This paper describes the origins of the group and gives (anonymized) examples of some of the types of issues discussed. (shrink)

There is a paucity of experimental data addressing how peers influence adolescent risk-taking. Here, we examined peer effects on risky decision-making in adults and adolescents using a virtual social context that enabled experimental control over the peer “interactions”. 40 adolescents (age 11-18) and 28 adults (age 20-38) completed a risk-taking (Wheel of Fortune) task under 4 conditions: in private; while being observed by (fictitious) peers; and after receiving ‘risky’ or ‘safe’ advice from the peers. For high-risk gambles (but not medium-risk (...) or even gambles), adolescents made more risky decisions under peer observation than adults. Adolescents, but not adults, tended to resist ‘safe’ advice for high-risk gambles. Although both groups tended to follow ‘risky’ advice for high-risk gambles, adults did so more than adolescents. These findings highlight the importance of distinguishing between the effects of peer observation and peer advice on risky decision-making. (shrink)

Should Proverbs be read as prose or poetry? Considering the language craft is of essential significance for a hermeneutical enquiry into the biblical book of Proverbs. Five suppositions to support the presupposition that Proverbs is best read as poetry were considered.

It is well established that microRNAs (miRNAs) induce mRNA degradation by binding to 3′ untranslated regions (UTRs). The functionality of sites in the coding domain sequence (CDS), on the other hand, remains under discussion. Such sites have limited impact on target mRNA abundance and recent work suggests that miRNAs bind in the CDS to inhibit translation. What then could be the regulatory benefits of translation inhibition through CDS targeting compared to mRNA degradation following 3′ UTR binding? We propose that these (...) domain‐dependent effects serve to diversify the functional repertoire of post‐transcriptional gene expression control. Possible regulatory benefits may include tuning the time‐scale and magnitude of post‐transcriptional regulation, regulating protein abundance depending on or independently of the cellular state, and regulation of the protein abundance of alternative splice variants. Finally, we review emerging evidence that these ideas may generalize to RNA‐binding proteins beyond miRNAs and Argonaute proteins. (shrink)

We thank Parker and Wright for engaging in this roundtable debate in such a spirited way. The ‘Pharmacogenetic [test] to Avoid Loss of Hearing’ Trial is the first time a genetic point of care test has been applied in the acute neonatal setting; therefore, it is not surprising that questions have been raised which require debate, discussion and clarification. Parker and Wright misattribute several assumptions to the roundtable authors, which we would like to clarify here. Since they raise wider questions (...) about the PALOH trial itself, several of the roundtable discussants have made a joint response. (shrink)

In the past, biblical scholarship has neglected the hermeneutical contribution that an imaginal engagement with the text may make. The author’s aim in this article was to develop theological imagination as a hermeneutical device. This was done by briefly considering the concurrence in the hermeneutic contributions of three interpreters of biblical texts, with specific regard to their understanding of biblical imagination. These were Walter Brueggemann, Paul Ricoeur and Ignatius of Loyola. Their hermeneutical contributions concur in their understanding of a biblically (...) informed imagination, and it is specifically this aspect of the concurrence of their thought that was explored. An illustration from Proverbs 14:27, which draws on the metaphor and biblical motif of the fountain or source of life, was put forward to demonstrate how the concurrence in the contributions of these biblical interpreters may influence an imaginal engagement with the text.Keywords: Old Testament; Proverbs; Hermeneutics; The fear of the Lord/Yahweh; Walter Brueggemann; Paul Ricoeur; Ignatius of Loyola; Imaginal engagement. (shrink)

A Ricoeurian hermeneutic affords readers of the Old Testament an opportunity to access the biblical text anew as a source and norm for faith. Reese gave a convenient summarising description of Ricoeur’s hermeneutical approach. Ricoeur organised his considerations around four poles, namely distanciation, objectification, projecting of a world, and appropriation. These operate as the structuring considerations of a Ricoeurian hermeneutic and were illustrated with a sample proverb from the collection Proverbs 10:1–15:33.

In this round table response, we discuss some of the problems inherent in insisting on specific consent for an activity that needs to happen rapidly as part of a package of care. The Human Tissue Authority consider that specific consent is mandatory to assess which antibiotics are appropriate on the neonatal unit, but this insistence may actually limit the autonomy which consent aims to promote. While genetic testing to determine which child will react adversely to particular antibiotics has been available (...) clinically for several years, the research proposed here is to assess whether improving the speed of testing allows decisions to be made before treatment starts. Insisting on specific consent before this activity can take place is likely to delay appropriate care in some cases. On admission to the neonatal unit, the unwell infant is routinely subjected to a range of investigations and treatments. A person with parental responsibility will usually be asked to provide consent to undertake treatments for children who do not have capacity to give consent themselves.1 For the acutely unwell child, consent will usually be sought for a package of care: the urgent nature of neonatal medicine often requires clinicians to make many decisions without explicit consent. Doctors must always act in a child’s best interests: their decisions need to protect the health and well-being of a child and hold the child’s welfare paramount in accordance with the Children Act and General Medical Council guidelines.1 2 Thus, for example, ventilation might be initiated, sedation provided, antibiotics commenced or diagnostic investigations requested without separate consent conversations or …. (shrink)

Our ability to generate genomic data is currently well ahead of our ability to understand what they mean, raising challenges about how best to engage with them. This article considers ethical aspects of work with such data, focussing on research contexts that are intertwined with clinical care. We discuss the identifying nature of genomic data, the medical information intrinsic within them, and their linking of people within a biological family. We go on to consider what this means for consent, the (...) importance of thoughtful sharing of genomic data, the challenge of constructing meaningful findings, and the legacy of unequal representation in genomic datasets. We argue that the ongoing success of genomic data research relies on public trust in the enterprise: to justify this trust, we need to ensure robust stewarding, and wide engagement about the ethical issues inherent in such practices. (shrink)

Considerations of the notion of preparedness have come to the fore in the recent pandemic, highlighting a need to be better prepared to deal with sudden, unexpected and unwanted events. However, the concept of preparedness is also important in relation to planned for and desired interventions resulting from healthcare innovations. We describe ethical preparedness as a necessary component for the successful delivery of novel healthcare innovations, and use recent advances in genomic healthcare as an example. We suggest that practitioners and (...) organisations charged with delivering innovative and ambitious healthcare programmes can only succeed if they are able to exhibit the attribute of ethical preparedness. (shrink)

This study investigates the persuasiveness of different types of expert evidence. Following Wagemans, two types of experts were distinguished that can be used in expert evidence: experiential experts and professional experts. In a between-subjects experiment, these different types of experts were included in a news report on a political issue. Results indicate that the perceived expertise and persuasiveness of professional experts was higher than that of experiential experts. Perceived expertise completely mediated the effects of the different types of expert evidence (...) on persuasion. These results point towards a recommendation of using professional expert evidence over experiential expert evidence in reporting on political issues. (shrink)

De Long's criticisms of our explanation of unemployment patterns in the United States are empirically false. His assertion that we have the direction of causation reversed collapses in light of the lag between artificially high wages and unemployment. Nor are his claims about the nature of cyclical movements in productivity and real wages consistent with the data. Finally, his contention that the model we present does not work in the post‐World War II era is, at best, misleading. The evidence shows (...) with remarkable consistency that government attempts to prop up wages have caused twentieth‐century increases in U.S. employment. (shrink)

PROSPERITY AND UPHEAVAL: THE WORLD ECONOMY 1945?1980 by Herman Van der Wee translated by Robin Hogg and Max R. Hall Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. 621pp., $14.95 Van der Wee uncritically accepts that Keynesianism is responsible for post?war economic stability. Against this belief, it is argued that an analysis of the historical record shows no significant efforts at countercyclical fiscal management in the post?war era, while efforts to control the economy via monetary policy were associated with increasing instability, culminating (...) in the crisis years of the 1970s. Thus, in the American case at least, post?war stability has been the result of self?correcting market tendencies, while instability has followed government macroeconomic intervention. (shrink)

Big data and Machine learning Techniques are reshaping the way in which food safety risk assessment is conducted. The ongoing ‘datafication’ of food safety risk assessment activities and the progressive deployment of probabilistic models in their practices requires a discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of these advances. In particular, the low level of trust in EU food safety risk assessment framework highlighted in 2019 by an EU-funded survey could be exacerbated by novel methods of analysis. The variety of processed (...) data raises unique questions regarding the interplay of multiple regulatory systems alongside food safety legislation. Provisions aiming to preserve the confidentiality of data and protect personal information are juxtaposed to norms prescribing the public disclosure of scientific information. This research is intended to provide guidance for data governance and data ownership issues that unfold from the ongoing transformation of the technical and legal domains of food safety risk assessment. Following the reconstruction of technological advances in data collection and analysis and the description of recent amendments to food safety legislation, emerging concerns are discussed in light of the individual, collective and social implications of the deployment of cutting-edge Big Data collection and analysis techniques. Then, a set of principle-based recommendations is proposed by adapting high-level principles enshrined in institutional documents about Artificial Intelligence to the realm of food safety risk assessment. The proposed set of recommendations adopts Safety, Accountability, Fairness, Explainability, Transparency as core principles (SAFETY), whereas Privacy and data protection are used as a meta-principle. (shrink)

Gyngell and colleagues consider that the recent Nuffield Council report does not go far enough: heritable genome editing is not just justifiable in a few rare cases; instead, there is a moral imperative to undertake it. We agree that there is a moral argument for this, but in the real world it is mitigated by the fact that it is not usually possible to ensure a better life. We suggest that a moral imperative for HGE can currently only be concluded (...) if one first buys into an overly deterministic view of a genome sequence, and the role of variation within in it, in the aetiology of the disease: most diseases cannot simply be attributed to specific genetic variants that we could edit away. Multiple, poorly understood genetic and environmental factors interact to influence the expression of diseases with a genetic component, even well understood ‘monogenic’ disorders. Population-level genome analyses are now demonstrating that many genetic ’mutations' are much less predictive than previously thought 1. Furthermore, HGE might introduce new risks just as it reduces old ones; or remove protections not yet clearly delineated. (shrink)

This article extends the definition of sensationalism to print media by arguing that language intensifiers may be an aspect of sensationalism. In addition, this paper investigates if an indirect effect can be established by which sensationalistic message features influence news reception through the perception of sensationalism. Two between-subjects experiments show that sensationalistic message features like intensifiers increase perceived language intensity. In experiment 1, intensifiers had a negative effect on news article appreciation, which was not influenced by PLI. Experiment 2 revealed (...) positive indirect effects of intensifiers through PLI on newsworthiness and news article appreciation. (shrink)

Questions regarding the moral responsibility of Internet accessand service providers relating to information on the Internetcall for a reassessment of the ways in which we think aboutattributing blame, guilt, and duties of reparation andcompensation. They invite us to borrow something similar to theidea of strict liability from the legal sphere and to introduceit in morality and ethical theory. Taking such a category in thedistribution of responsibilities outside the domain of law andintroducing it into ethics, however, is a difficult thing. Doingso (...) seems to conflict with some broadly shared and deeply feltintuitions regarding the individuality of responsibility and therelationship between responsibility and guilt. These convictionscoincide with some basic ideas in Kantian moral theory and theascriptive theory based on these ideas. Nevertheless, theproblems to which the proposed liabilities / responsibilitiesrelate are so serious that they do not seem to leave room foraloofness. At least, they encourage us to reconsider the idea ofstrict liability carefully and to assess its merits. (shrink)

Sight is undoubtedly the most crucial sense, and accidents resulting in its loss are a significant tragedy for individuals. The scientific community embarked on a journey of scientific innovation i...

We present a developmental perspective regarding the difference in perceptions toward privacy between young and old. Here, we introduce the notion of privacy conceptions, that is, the specific ideas that individuals have regarding what privacy actually is. The differences in privacy concerns often found between young and old are postulated as the result of the differences found in their privacy conceptions, which are subsequently linked to their developmental life stages. The data presented have been obtained through a questionnaire distributed among (...) adolescents, young adults, and adults and provide support for this developmental perspective. This study is one of the first to include adolescents when investigating the privacy concerns among young and old. The results show that the privacy conceptions held by adolescents indeed differ from those held by young adults and adults in keeping with the expectations as seen from a developmental perspective. In addition, the areas in which the differences in privacy conceptions are found also reflect the strongest relationship with concerns. As such, these findings present an alternative perspective to the commonly held notion that young people are less concerned about privacy. (shrink)

Previous studies have shown that identification and self-referencing can both function as mechanisms of narrative persuasion. However, it is not yet clear whether they are compatible and can work together in bringing about persuasive effects of narratives, or not. Therefore, this study examines both identification and self-referencing and studies their relation and effects. A 2x2 between-subjects experiment was conducted among 185 student participants, with the factors ‘perspective’ (1st vs. 3rd person) to influence identification and ‘similarity’ (young student protagonist vs. older (...) working protagonist) to influence self-referencing. Results showed that identification mediated indirect effects of perspective on story-consistent belief and self-referencing mediated indirect effects of similarity on story-consistent belief. Moreover, identification and self-referencing serially mediated indirect effects on story-consistent belief. These results indicate that identification and self-referencing are compatible processes which can work together as mechanisms of narrative persuasion. (shrink)

Artikelen over intersubjectiviteit in ethiek, spiritualiteit en filosofie.

In this contribution, we identify and clarifysome distinctions we believe are useful inestablishing the reliability of information onthe Internet. We begin by examining some of thesalient features of information that go intothe determination of reliability. In so doing,we argue that we need to distinguish contentand pedigree criteria of reliability and thatwe need to separate issues of reliability ofinformation from the issues of theaccessibility and the usability of information.We then turn to an analysis of some commonfailures to recognize reliability orunreliability.