Biomedicine is a global enterprise constructed upon the belief in the universality of scientific truths. However, despite huge scientific advances over recent decades it has not been able to formulate a specific and universal definition of death: In fact, in its attempt to redefine death, the concept of death appears to have become immersed in ever increasing vagueness and ambiguity. Even more worrisome is that bioethics, in the form of principlism, is also endeavouring to become a global enterprise by claiming (...) neutrality. It appears that the discourse within both disciplines have similarly manipulated the boundaries of death to include the “dying”. This paper argues that the redefinition of death debate in biomedicine reveals a concept of personhood which is profoundly western in origin and which is in accordance to the concept adhered to within principlism. Biomedicine and bioethics do not appear to acknowledge the limitations of their own world view and hence lack an understanding of their applicability and appropriateness in diverse social and cultural contexts; a situation which adds credence to claims as to the hegemonic and imperialistic nature of all such global enterprises. (shrink)

Nanomedicine is yielding new and improved treatments and diagnostics for a range of diseases and disorders. Nanomedicine applications incorporate materials and components with nanoscale dimensions where novel physiochemical properties emerge as a result of size-dependent phenomena and high surface-to-mass ratio. Nanotherapeutics and in vivo nanodiagnostics are a subset of nanomedicine products that enter the human body. These include drugs, biological products, implantable medical devices, and combination products that are designed to function in the body in ways unachievable at larger scales. (...) Nanotherapeutics andin vivonanodiagnostics incorporate materials that are engineered at the nanoscale to express novel properties that are medicinally useful. These nanomedicine applications can also contain nanomaterials that are biologically active, producing interactions that depend on biological triggers. Examples include nanoscale formulations of insoluble drugs to improve bioavailability and pharmacokinetics, drugs encapsulated in hollow nanoparticles with the ability to target and cross cellular and tissue membranes and to release their payload at a specific time or location, imaging agents that demonstrate novel optical properties to aid in locating micrometastases, and antimicrobial and drug-eluting components or coatings of implantable medical devices such as stents. (shrink)

Ever want to be famous? They didn't. It just sorta happened. Playing for friends at a pizzeria one day - full-on, massive world tour the next. Insane to a power of ten. Then, right in the middle the madness, they crash and burn. The reality of life is - stuff happens... Now, their fans are asking - what is it going to take to get pop music's latest 'phenomenon' back together? Can it even be done? In the fast paced, high-pressure (...) world that is pop music, will their passion be enough to ensure that our five accidental superstars will find their way back to doing what they were so amazingly good at? This is a story of unimaginable gain, devastating loss, and the remarkable ability of five friends, to overcome it all... (shrink)

No consensus yet exists on how to handle incidental fnd-ings in human subjects research. Yet empirical studies document IFs in a wide range of research studies, where IFs are fndings beyond the aims of the study that are of potential health or reproductive importance to the individual research participant. This paper reports recommendations of a two-year project group funded by NIH to study how to manage IFs in genetic and genomic research, as well as imaging research. We conclude that researchers (...) have an obligation to address the possibility of discovering IFs in their protocol and communications with the IRB, and in their consent forms and communications with research participants. Researchers should establish a pathway for handling IFs and communicate that to the IRB and research participants. We recommend a pathway and categorize IFs into those that must be disclosed to research participants, those that may be disclosed, and those that should not be disclosed. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Beginning Lives, by Rosalind Hursthouse. On Moral Medicine:Theological Perspectives in Medical Ethics, edited by Stephen E. Lammers and Allen Verhey. Quantitative Risk Assessment, edited by James M. Humber and Robert F. A Theory of Value and Obligation, by Robin Attfield. Ethical Issues at the Outset of Life, edited by William B. Weil Jr. and Martin Benjamin. Legal Frontiers of Death and Dying by Norman L. Cantor Having Your Baby By Donor Insemination:A Complete Resource Guide, by (...) Elizabeth Noble. (shrink)

A sample of 523 newly ordained female Anglican clergy in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales completed the Eysenck Personality Profiler. The data demonstrated that the female clergy tended to be less extravert than women in general, less neurotic than women in general, and less toughminded than women in general. These findings help to clarify the way in which women clergy tend to project a characteristically masculine personality profile in respect of one major dimension of personality, but a characteristically feminine personality (...) profile in respect of the other two major dimensions of personality. (shrink)

Three visual habituation studies using abstract animations tested the claim that infants’ attachment behavior in the Strange Situation procedure corresponds to their expectations about caregiver–infant interactions. Three unique patterns of expectations were revealed. Securely attached infants expected infants to seek comfort from caregivers and expected caregivers to provide comfort. Insecure-resistant infants not only expected infants to seek comfort from caregivers but also expected caregivers to withhold comfort. Insecure-avoidant infants expected infants to avoid seeking comfort from caregivers and expected caregivers to (...) withhold comfort. These data support Bowlby’s (1958) original claims—that infants form internal working models of attachment that are expressed in infants’ own behavior. (shrink)

This article examines infant attachment styles from the perspective of cognitive and emotional subjectivity. We review new data that show that individual differences in infants’ attachment behaviors in the traditional Strange Situation are related to (a) infants’ subjective construals of infant—caregiver interactions, (b) their attention to emotional expressions, and (c) polymorphisms in the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene. We use these findings to argue that individual differences in infants’ attachment styles reflect, in part, the subjective outcomes of objective experience as filtered (...) through genetic biases in socioemotional information processing. (shrink)

Psalm 73 is a challenging Psalm in which the Psalmist draws on rich imagery to juxtapose doctrine and experience and to juxtapose the goodness of God with divine retribution. Drawing on data provided by 15 theological educators within the Anglican Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf, this study tests the thesis that the imagery of Psalm 73 will be perceived differently by sensing types and by intuitive types and that the issue ‘Is God really good to the upright?’ will be (...) judged differently by feeling types and by thinking types. The findings from this study are consistent with the broader hermeneutical theory that the psychological type profile of the reader, in terms of perceiving preference and judging preference, plays a formative part in shaping the interpretation of biblical material.Contribution: Situated within the reader-perspective approach to biblical hermeneutics, the SIFT method is concerned with identifying the influence of the psychological type of the reader in shaping the interpretation of text. The present study demonstrates that this theory holds true for the way in which theological educators read Psalm 73. (shrink)

Moral rationalism takes human reason and human rationality to be the key elements in an explanation of the nature of morality, moral judgment, and moral knowledge. This volume explores the resources of this rich philosophical tradition. Thirteen original essays, framed by the editors' introduction, critically examine the four core theses of moral rationalism: (i) the psychological thesis that reason is the source of moral judgment, (ii) the metaphysical thesis that moral requirements are constituted by the deliverances of practical reason, (iii) (...) the epistemological thesis that moral requirements are knowable a priori, and (iv) the normative thesis that moral requirements entail valid reasons for action. The five essays in Part I ('Normativity') offer contemporary defences or reconstructions of Kant's attempt to ground the normative thesis, that moral requirements entail valid reasons for action, in the nature of practical reason and practical rationality. The four essays in Part II ('Epistemology & Meaning') consider the viability of claims to a priori moral knowledge. The authors of all four essays are sympathetic to a realist moral metaphysics, and thus forgo the straightforward constructivist road to apriority. The four essays in Part III ('Psychology') each grapple with the implications for rationalism of the role of emotions and unconscious processes in moral judgement and action. Together the essays demonstrate that moral rationalism identifies not a single philosophical position but rather a family of philosophical positions, which resemble traditional rationalism, as exemplified by Kant, to varying degrees. (shrink)

During the mid-twentieth century, Soviet scientists developed the “natural focus” theory–practice framework to explain outbreaks of diseases endemic to wild animals and transmitted to humans. Focusing on parasitologist-physician Evgeny N. Pavlovsky and other field scientists’ work in the Soviet borderlands, this article explores how the natural focus framework’s concepts and practices were entangled in political as well as material ecologies of knowledge and practice. We argue that the very definition of endemic plague incorporated both hands-on materialist experience and ideological concepts (...) that supported Soviet colonization. Theorizing and fighting plague assisted with the goals of controlling and improving landscapes and peoples in southern Russia and Central Asia. The history of the natural focus framework illustrates how Soviet disease ecology co-developed with the needs of local and central political powers in the Soviet borderlands. (shrink)

This study is designed to test the hypothesis that events like the Holly Bough service held in Liverpool Cathedral on the fourth Sunday of Advent that attracts a wide range of participants, including regular churchgoers and occasional (sometimes annual) visitors, contribute significantly to the psychological health and well-being of these participants. At the Holly Bough service held in 2019, a total of 383 participants (139 men, 229 women and 15 individuals who preferred anonymity) completed a recognised measure of psychological health (...) and well-being (the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire) whilst they were waiting for the service to begin and again during a 5-min organ improvisation just before the close of the service. The data demonstrated a significantly higher score on the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire at time 2 than at time 1, suggesting that the experience of the service functioned as an agent of psychological health and well-being. Contribution: Situated within the science of cathedral studies, this paper confirms by means of a repeated-measure study that cathedrals promote psychological health; 383 participants at a Christmas service completed the same well-being measure before and after the service, with a significant increase in scores at time two. (shrink)

One of the key intentions of fresh expressions of church is to reach the kind of people inherited church find it hard to reach. Psychological type profiling of church congregations has demonstrated that Anglican churches have particular difficulty in reaching those whose Jungian judging preference is for thinking rather than for feeling. Studies that have explored the psychological type profile of participants within fresh expressions suggest that they do not significantly differ from inherited congregations in terms of reaching thinking types. (...) Two previous studies, however, have reported higher proportions of thinking types attending cathedral carol services. The present study among 441 individuals attending the Holly Bough service in Liverpool Cathedral also found a higher proportion of thinking types among the participants. These findings suggest that cathedral carol services may be functioning as fresh expressions of church in a significant way.Contribution: Situated within the science of cathedral studies, rooted in psychological type theory, and drawing on data from 441 attendees at the Holly Bough service, this study demonstrates that cathedral services at Christmas are more successful than either inherited church or fresh expressions of church in reaching thinking types. (shrink)

A sample of 552 first year undergraduate students, attending a universitysector college in Wales specialising in teacher education and liberal arts subjects, completed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator together with the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity. The data demonstrated that judging types held a more positive attitude toward Christianity than perceiving types. No significant differences in attitude toward Christianity were found between introverts and extraverts, between sensers and intuitives, or between thinkers and feelers.

The principle that emergent writing is supported by talk, and that an appropriate pedagogy for writing should include planned opportunities for talk is well researched and well understood. However, the process by which talk becomes text is less clear. The term 'oral rehearsal' is now commonplace in English classrooms and curriculum policy documents, yet as a concept it is not well theorised. Indeed, there is relatively little reference to the concept of oral rehearsal in the international literature, and what references (...) do exist propose differing interpretations of the concept. At its most liberal, the term is used loosely as a synonym for talk; more precise definitions frame oral rehearsal, for example, as a strategy for reducing cognitive load during writing; for post-hoc reviewing of text; for helping writers to 'hear' their own writing; or for practising sentences aloud as a preliminary to writing them down. Drawing on a systematic review of the literature and video data from an empirical study, the paper will offer a theoretical conceptualisation of oral rehearsal, drawing on existing understanding of writing processes and will illustrate the ways in which young writers use oral rehearsal before and during writing. (shrink)

This study was designed to test the hypothesis that events such as the Christmas Eve Carol Services at Liverpool Cathedral that include some regular churchgoers (people who attend services most weeks) and much larger numbers of occasional visitors (who may attend church only once or twice a year) make a significant impact on the psychological health and well-being of the participants. Using a repeat-measure design, participants were invited to complete a copy of the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire while they were waiting (...) for the service to begin and then to complete a second copy during a five-minute organ improvisation just before the close of the service. Data provided by 802 participants who completed both copies of the instrument demonstrated a significantly higher score on the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire at time two than at time one, suggesting that attendance at the service had exerted a positive impact on psychological health and well-being. Contribution: Situated within the science of cathedral studies, this article demonstrates by means of a repeated-measure study that cathedrals can make a significant impact on the psychological health and well-being of the wider community served by them. The same well-being measure was completed by 802 participants at the Christmas Eve Carol Services before and after the event, with a significant increase in scores at time two. (shrink)

Previous research employing Jungian psychological type theory has both demonstrated that Church of England inherited congregations have problems engaging thinking types and suggested that fresh expressions of church have failed to address that problem. Three previous studies, however, have reported higher proportions of thinking types attending cathedral carol services. The present study was designed to check that finding on a larger sample. The Francis Psychological Type Scales were completed by 941 participants at the afternoon Carol Services held in Liverpool Cathedral (...) on Christmas Eve 2019, and the data compared with the profile of 3304 participants within 140 inherited congregations. The present study also found a higher proportion of thinking types among the participants at these carol services. These findings suggest that cathedral carol services may be functioning as fresh expressions of church in a significant way. Further research is needed to explore whether other cathedral services may function in similar ways.CONTRIBUTION: Situated within the science of congregation studies, rooted in psychological type theory and drawing on data from 941 participants at the afternoon Carol Services held in Liverpool Cathedral on Christmas Eve 2019, this study confirms that cathedral carol services at Christmas are more successful than either inherited church or fresh expressions of church in reaching thinking types. (shrink)

The 20-item happiness scale proposed by the Eysenck Personality Profiler was completed by 1,148 Anglican clergymen and 523 Anglican clergywomen during their first year in ordained ministry. The data demonstrated that clergymen were neither more nor less happy than men in the general population, and that clergywomen were happier than women in the general population. These findings are discussed in the context of work-related satisfaction and overall well-being.

Research on the origins of human social smiling is presented as a case study of how a species-specific, species-typical behavior may emerge from thousands of momentary events in which a continuously changing biological organism acts to make, respond to, and learn from its experience.

The hemidesmosome is a complex junction containing many proteins. The keratin cytoskeleton attaches to its cytoplasmic plaque, while its transmembrane elements interact with components of the extracellular matrix. Hemidesmosome assembly involves recruitment of α6β4 integrin heterodimers, as well as cytoskeletal elements and cytoskeleton-associated proteins to the cell surface. In our cell culture models, these phenomena appear to be triggered by laminin-5 in the extracellular matrix. Cell interaction with laminin-5 apparently induces both phosphorylation and dephosphorylation of subunits of α6β4 integrin. There (...) is emerging evidence that such events are necessary for subsequent cytoskeleton anchorage to the hemidesmosome cytoplasmic plaque. Once assembled, the hemidesmosome plays an essential role in maintaining firm epithelial adhesion to the basement membrane, with hemidesmosome disruption being a hallmark of certain devastating blistering diseases. However, the hemidesmosome is more than just a stable anchor, as it may also be the site of signal transduction, mediated by its α6β4 integrin component. This review discusses our current knowledge of the structure and assembly of the hemidesmosome. BioEssays 20:488–494, 1998. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

As much a portrait of his time as a biography of the man, Karl Marx: Greatness and Illusion returns the author of Das Kapital to his nineteenth-century world, before twentieth-century inventions transformed him into Communism’s patriarch and fierce lawgiver. Gareth Stedman Jones depicts an era dominated by extraordinary challenges and new notions about God, human capacities, empires, and political systems—and, above all, the shape of the future. In the aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo, a Europe-wide argument began about (...) the industrial transformation of England, the Revolution in France, and the hopes and fears generated by these occurrences. Would the coming age belong to those enthralled by the revolutionary events and ideas that had brought this world into being, or would its inheritors be those who feared and loathed it? Stedman Jones gives weight not only to Marx’s views but to the views of those with whom he contended. He shows that Marx was as buffeted as anyone else living through a period that both confirmed and confounded his interpretations—and that ultimately left him with terrible intimations of failure. Karl Marx allows the reader to understand Marx’s milieu and development, and makes sense of the devastating impact of new ways of seeing the world conjured up by Kant, Hegel, Feuerbach, Ricardo, Saint-Simon, and others. We come to understand how Marx transformed and adapted their philosophies into ideas that would have—through twists and turns inconceivable to him—an overwhelming impact across the globe in the twentieth century. (shrink)

Moral rationalism takes human reason and human rationality to be the key elements in an explanation of the nature of morality, moral judgment, and moral knowledge. This volume explores the resources of this rich philosophical tradition. Thirteen original essays, framed by the editors' introduction, critically examine the four core theses of moral rationalism: (i) the psychological thesis that reason is the source of moral judgment, (ii) the metaphysical thesis that moral requirements are constituted by the deliverances of practical reason, (iii) (...) the epistemological thesis that moral requirements are knowable a priori, and (iv) the normative thesis that moral requirements entail valid reasons for action. The five essays in Part I ('Normativity') offer contemporary defences or reconstructions of Kant's attempt to ground the normative thesis, that moral requirements entail valid reasons for action, in the nature of practical reason and practical rationality. The four essays in Part II ('Epistemology & Meaning') consider the viability of claims to a priori moral knowledge. The authors of all four essays are sympathetic to a realist moral metaphysics, and thus forgo the straightforward constructivist road to apriority. The four essays in Part III ('Psychology') each grapple with the implications for rationalism of the role of emotions and unconscious processes in moral judgement and action. Together the essays demonstrate that moral rationalism identifies not a single philosophical position but rather a family of philosophical positions, which resemble traditional rationalism, as exemplified by Kant, to varying degrees. (shrink)

This book presents a collection of contemporary discourses that reconsider the relationship of democracy as a political ideology and American ideal and education as the foundation of preparing democratic citizens in America.

Using fMRI, we investigated how right temporal lobe gliomas affecting the posterior superior temporal sulcus alter neural processing observed during speech perception and production tasks. Behavioural language testing showed that three pre-operative neurosurgical patients with grade 2, grade 3 or grade 4 tumours had the same pattern of mild language impairment in the domains of object naming and written word comprehension. When matching heard words for semantic relatedness (a speech perception task), these patients showed under-activation in the tumour infiltrated right (...) superior temporal lobe compared to 61 neurotypical participants and 16 patients with tumours that preserved the right postero-superior temporal lobe, with enhanced activation within the (tumour-free) contralateral left superior temporal lobe. In contrast, when correctly naming objects (a speech production task), the patients with right postero-superior temporal lobe tumours showed higher activation than both control groups in the same right postero-superior temporal lobe region that was under-activated during auditory semantic matching. The task dependent pattern of under-activation during the auditory speech task and over-activation during object naming was also observed in eight stroke patients with right hemisphere infarcts that affected the right postero-superior temporal lobe compared to eight stroke patients with right hemisphere infarcts that spared it. These task-specific and site-specific cross-pathology effects highlight the importance of the right temporal lobe for language processing and motivate further study of how right temporal lobe tumours affect language performance and neural reorganisation. These findings may have important implications for surgical management of these patients, as knowledge of the regions showing functional reorganisation may help to avoid their inadvertent damage during neurosurgery. (shrink)

The U.S. National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases and the National Institute of Mental Health have a new research priority: inclusion of terminally ill persons living with HIV in HIV cure-related research. For example, the Last Gift is a clinical research study at the University of California San Diego for PLWHIV who have a terminal illness, with a prognosis of less than 6 months. As end-of-life HIV cure research is relatively new, the scientific community has a timely opportunity to (...) examine the related ethical challenges. Following an extensive review of the EOL and HIV cure research ethics literature, combined with deliberation from various stakeholders and our experience with the Last Gift study to date, we outline considerations to ensure that such research with terminally ill PLWHIV remains ethical, focusing on five topics: 1) protecting autonomy through informed consent, 2) avoiding exploitation and fostering altruism, 3) maintaining a favorable benefits/risks balance, 4) safeguarding against vulnerability through patient-participant centeredness, and 5) ensuring the acceptance of next-of-kin/loved ones and community stakeholders. EOL HIV cure-related research can be performed ethically and effectively by anticipating key issues that may arise. While not unique to the fields of EOL or HIV cure-related research, the considerations highlighted can help us support a new research approach. We must honor the lives of PLWHIV whose involvement in research can provide the knowledge needed to achieve the dream of making HIV infection curable. (shrink)

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses an increasing threat to patient care and population health and there is a growing need for novel therapies to tackle AMR. Bacteriophage (phage) therapy is a re-emerging antimicrobial strategy with the potential to transform how bacterial infections are treated in patients and populations. Currently, in the UK, phages can be used as unlicensed medicinal products on a ‘named-patient’ basis. We make an ethical case for why it is crucially important for the UK to invest in Good (...) Manufacturing Practice (GMP) for both ongoing unlicensed and future licensed phage therapy. Access to phages produced to GMP (GMP phages) will ensure effective patient care and better outcomes as well as health systems benefits. The UK also has the potential to become a global leader in the timely and cost-efficient manufacturing and supply of a therapy that meets internationally recognised standards. (shrink)

The Search for the Legacy of the USPHS Syphilis Study at Tuskegee is a collection of essays from experts in a variety of fields seeking to redefine the legacy of the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study. The essayists place the legacy of the study within the evolution of racial and ethnic relations in the United States. Contributors include two leading historians on the study, two former United States Surgeons General, and other prominent scholars from a wide range of fields.

Using state-of-the-art observational datasets and results from a large archive of computer model simulations, a consortium of scientists from 12 different institutions has resolved a long-standing conundrum in climate science—the apparent discrepancy between simulated and observed temperature trends in the tropics. Research published by this group indicates that there is no fundamental discrepancy between modeled and observed tropical temperature trends when one accounts for: the uncertainties in observations; and the statistical uncertainties in estimating trends from observations. These results refute a (...) recent claim that model and observed tropical temperature trends “disagree to a statistically significant extent”. This claim was based on the application of a flawed statistical test and the use of older observational datasets. (shrink)