Background: Lay persons’ judgements of the acceptability of the not uncommon practice of ending the life of a damaged neonate have not been studied. Methods: A convenience sample of 1635 lay people in France rated how acceptable it would be for a physician to end a neonate’s life—by withholding care, withdrawing care, or active euthanasia—in 54 scenarios in which the neonate was diagnosed either with perinatal asphyxia or a genetic abnormality. The scenarios were all combinations of four factors: three levels (...) of maturity or immaturity, three levels of severity of the health problem, three levels of parents’ preference concerning prolonging care and two levels of decision-making (with or without consulting the other caregivers). Analyses: Analyses of variance of the participants’ responses were performed to determine the importance of each factor; the interactions among factors, with methods of ending life and with other patient characteristics; and the differences between asphyxia and genetic abnormality. A cluster analysis was performed to look for groups with different patterns of responses. Results: Lay people assigned most importance to the parents’ request and to the severity of the problem. Except for a small group (12%) always opposed to ending life, they used a simple additive-type rule in integrating the information. Implications: Most of this sample of French lay people are not categorically for or against ending the life of a damaged neonate, but judge its degree of acceptability by adding up those factors that seem most salient to them. (shrink)

Data from various settings suggest that there is an upper limit of about four on the number of individuals who can interact in spontaneous conversation. This limit appears to be a consequence of the mechanisms of speech production and detection. There appear to be no differences between men and women in this respect, other than those introduced by women’s lighter voices.

During the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic, preclinical and clinical research were sped up and scaled up in both the public and private sectors and in partnerships between them. This resulted in some extraordinary advances, but it also raised a range of issues regarding the ethics, rigour, and integrity of scientific research, academic publication, and public communication. Many of the failures of scientific rigour and integrity that occurred during the pandemic were exacerbated by the rush to generate, disseminate, and (...) implement research findings, which not only created opportunities for unscrupulous actors but also compromised the methodological, peer review, and advisory processes that would usually identify sub-standard research and prevent compromised clinical or policy-level decisions. While it would be tempting to attribute these failures of science and its translation solely to the “unprecedented” circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, the reality is that they preceded the pandemic and will continue to arise once it is over. Existing strategies for promoting scientific rigour and integrity need to be made more rigorous, better integrated into research training and institutional cultures, and made more sophisticated. They might also need to be modified or supplemented with other strategies that are fit for purpose not only in public health emergencies but in any research that is sped-up and scaled up to address urgent unmet medical needs. (shrink)

Evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) has undergone dramatic transformations since its emergence as a distinct discipline. This paper aims to highlight the scope, power, and future promise of evo-devo to transform and unify diverse aspects of biology. We articulate key questions at the core of eleven biological disciplines—from Evolution, Development, Paleontology, and Neurobiology to Cellular and Molecular Biology, Quantitative Genetics, Human Diseases, Ecology, Agriculture and Science Education, and lastly, Evolutionary Developmental Biology itself—and discuss why evo-devo is uniquely situated to substantially improve (...) our ability to find meaningful answers to these fundamental questions. We posit that the tools, concepts, and ways of thinking developed by evo-devo have profound potential to advance, integrate, and unify biological sciences as well as inform policy decisions and illuminate science education. We look to the next generation of evolutionary developmental biologists to help shape this process as we confront the scientific challenges of the 21st century. (shrink)

Background: Informed consent in clinical research is mandated throughout the world. Both patient subjects and investigators are required to understand and accept the distinction between research and treatment.Aim: To document the extent and to identify factors associated with therapeutic misconception in a population of patient subjects or parent proxies recruited from a variety of multicentre trials .Patients and methods: The study comprised two phases: the development of a questionnaire to assess the quality of informed consent and a survey of patient (...) subjects based on this questionnaire.Results: A total of 303 patient subjects or parent proxies were contacted and 279 questionnaires were analysed. The median age was 49.5 years, sex ratio was 1 and 61% of respondents were professionally active. Overall memorisation of the oral or written communication of informed consent was good , and satisfaction with the process was around 70%. Therapeutic misconception was present in 70% of respondents, who expected to receive better care and ignored the consequence of randomisation and treatment comparisons. This was positively associated with the acuteness and severity of the disease.Conclusion: The authors suggest that the risk of therapeutic misconception be specifically addressed in consent forms as an educational tool for both patients and investigators. (shrink)

Several themes can be identified in the commentaries. The first is that the climbing fibers may have more than one function; the second is that the climbing fibers provide sensory rather than motor signals. We accept the possibility that climbing fibers may have more than one function consequence(s)’ in the title. Until we know more about the function of the inhibitory input to the inferior olive from the cerebellar nuclei, which are motor structures, we have to keep open the possibility (...) that the climbing fiber signals can be a combination of sensory and motor signals. (shrink)

A unique description of the phenomena that arise from the interaction between quantum systems and their environment. Because of the novel character of the approach discussed, the book addresses scientists from all fields of physics and related disciplines as well as students of physics.

The paper discusses Dr. Floris Tomasini's paper “What Is Bioethics: Notes toward a New Approach?”. Based on Tomasini's account of methodological and ethical pluralism, the paper explores the demarcation problem of bioethics and suggests a full methodological laissez-faire.

The US neutrino community gathered at the Workshop on the Intermediate Neutrino Program at Brookhaven National Laboratory February 4-6, 2015 to explore opportunities in neutrino physics over the next five to ten years. Scientists from particle, astroparticle and nuclear physics participated in the workshop. The workshop examined promising opportunities for neutrino physics in the intermediate term, including possible new small to mid-scale experiments, US contributions to large experiments, upgrades to existing experiments, R&D plans and theory. The workshop was organized into (...) two sets of parallel working group sessions, divided by physics topics and technology. Physics working groups covered topics on Sterile Neutrinos, Neutrino Mixing, Neutrino Interactions, Neutrino Properties and Astrophysical Neutrinos. Technology sessions were organized into Theory, Short-Baseline Accelerator Neutrinos, Reactor Neutrinos, Detector R&D and Source, Cyclotron and Meson Decay at Rest sessions.This report summarizes discussion and conclusions from the workshop. (shrink)

This festschrift dedicated to Wilfrid Sellars is divided into two parts. Part I consists of eleven critical studies written expressly for this volume. They explore various aspects of Sellars’ philosophic thought. Part II, entitled "Sellarsiana," consists of Sellars’ autobiographical reflections, a bibliography of his works and a new series of papers by him on the problem of knowledge.

It is long known that facial configurations play a critical role when inferring mental and emotional states from others. Nevertheless, there is still a scientific debate on how we infer emotions from facial configurations. The theory of constructed emotion (TCE) suggests that we may infer different emotions from the same facial configuration, depending on the context (e.g. provided by visual and lexical cues) in which they are perceived. For instance, a recent study found that participants were more accurate in inferring (...) mental and emotional states across three different datasets (i.e. RMET, static and dynamic emojis) when words were provided (i.e. forced-choice task), compared to when they were not (i.e. free-labelling task), suggesting that words serve as contexts that modulate the inference from facial configurations. The goal of the current within-subject study was to replicate and extend these findings by adding a fourth dataset (KDEF-dyn), consisting of morphed human faces (to increase the ecological validity). Replicating previous findings, we observed that words increased accuracy across the three (previously used) datasets, an effect that was also observed for the facial morphed stimuli. Our findings are in line with the TCE, providing support for the importance of contextual verbal cues in emotion perception. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION The editors of this volume - Jarvie and D'Agostino - encountered John Watkins at such different times in his career that they have never ...

The DAMA project is an observatory for rare processes and it is operative deep underground at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory of the I.N.F.N. In particular, the DAMA/LIBRA (Large sodium Iodide Bulk for RAre processes) set-up consists of highly radiopure NaI(Tl) detectors for a total sensitive exposed mass of ≃250 kg. Recent results, obtained by this set-up by exploiting the model independent annual modulation signature of Dark Matter (DM) particles, have confirmed and improved those obtained by the former DAMA/NaI experiment. (...) A model independent evidence for the presence of Dark Matter particles in the galactic halo is cumulatively obtained at 8.2 σ C.L. No systematics or side reactions able to account for the measured modulation amplitude and to contemporaneously satisfy all the many specific requirements of the signature have been found or suggested by anyone over more than a decade. An example of one of the many possible model dependent corollary quests for the candidate particles and for the related astrophysical, nuclear and particle physics scenarios is presented considering the whole cumulative exposure. Future perspectives are shortly addressed. (shrink)

The objective of the study was to investigate the relationship between childhood IQ of parents and characteristics of their adult offspring. It was a prospective family cohort study linked to a mental ability survey of the parents and set in Renfrew and Paisley in Scotland. Participants were 1921-born men and women who took part in the Scottish Mental Survey in 1932 and the Renfrew/Paisley study in the 1970s, and whose offspring took part in the Midspan Family study in 1996. There (...) were 286 offspring from 179 families. Parental IQ was related to some, but not all characteristics of offspring. Greater parental IQ was associated with taller offspring. Parental IQ was inversely related to number of cigarettes smoked by offspring. Higher parental IQ was associated with better education, offspring social class and offspring deprivation category. There were no significant relationships between parental IQ and offspring systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose, lung function, weight, body mass index, waist hip ratio, housing, alcohol consumption, marital status, car use and exercise. Structural equation modelling showed parental IQ associated with offspring education directly and mediated via parental social class. Offspring education was associated with offspring smoking and social class. The smoking finding may have implications for targeting of health education. (shrink)

A report of a problem-based learning project on the ethics of terminal care, offered as one of the options available to first year MB ChB students in Edinburgh University Medical School. The project formed part of the 'clinical correlation course' in the new curriculum. Six students took part under the supervision of two clinical tutors and a moral philosopher. The course was case-based and practical with students being given the opportunity over a period of eight weeks to meet patients, relatives (...) and hospital staff at a local geriatrics hospital and terminal care home. The main issue studied was the degree of choice available to patients electing to be treated at home, in hospital or in a hospice. Other issues included: pre-death, disposal of the dead, certification of death, communication with relatives and follow-up bereavement services. (shrink)

High-spin states in the odd-odd N = Z nucleus Co-54 have been investigated by the fusion-evaporation reaction Si-28(S-32,1 alpha 1p1n)Co-54. Gamma-ray information gathered with the Ge detector array Gammasphere was correlated with evaporated particles detected in the charged particle detector system Microball and a 1 pi neutron detector array. A significantly extended excitation scheme of Co-54 is presented, which includes a candidate for the isospin T = 1, 6(+) state of the 1f(7/2)(-2) multiplet. The results are compared to large-scale shell-model (...) calculations in the fp shell. Effective interactions with and without isospin-breaking terms have been used to probe isospin symmetry and isospin mixing. A quest for deformed high-spin rotational cascades proved negative. This feature is discussed by means of cranking calculations. (shrink)