The use of human fetal tissue for scientific research has enormous potential but is subject to government legislation. In the United Kingdom the Polkinghorne Committee's guidelines were accepted by the Department of Health in 1990. These guidelines set out to protect women undergoing termination of pregnancy from exploitation but in so doing may significantly restrict potential research. Although the committee took evidence from a wide variety of experts they did not seek the views of the general public. We asked 108 (...) women about to have a therapeutic abortion; 167 women who had had a pregnancy terminated in the past, and 419 women who had never had an abortion, their views on research using human fetal tissue. Regardless of their past experiences the women were overwhelmingly in favour of research using fetal tissue (94 per cent). They made little distinction between basic research and research with obvious clinical relevance and supported the concept of using transplanted fetal tissue for the treatment of adult disease such as Parkinsonism. Women about to undergo an abortion were significantly more likely (p < 0.001) to approve of all types of research including that aimed at improving methods of abortion and research using live fetuses in utero. (shrink)

This piece explores legal, ethical, and policy arguments associated with using interventions that leverage feelings of shame and social exclusion to promote uptake of childhood immunizations by parents.

A total of 1918 loci, detected by the hybridization of 938 expressed sequence tag unigenes from 26 Triticeae cDNA libraries, were mapped to wheat homoeologous group 4 chromosomes using a set of deletion, ditelosomic, and nulli-tetrasomic lines. The 1918 EST loci were not distributed uniformly among the three group 4 chromosomes; 41, 28, and 31% mapped to chromosomes 4A, 4B, and 4D, respectively. This pattern is in contrast to the cumulative results of EST mapping in all homoeologous groups, as reported (...) elsewhere, that found the highest proportion of loci mapped to the B genome. Sixty-five percent of these 1918 loci mapped to the long arms of homoeologous group 4 chromosomes, while 35% mapped to the short arms. The distal regions of chromosome arms showed higher numbers of loci than the proximal regions, with the exception of 4DL. This study confirmed the complex structure of chromosome 4A that contains two reciprocal translocations and two inversions, previously identified. An additional inversion in the centromeric region of 4A was revealed. A consensus map for homoeologous group 4 was developed from 119 ESTs unique to group 4. Forty-nine percent of these ESTs were found to be homoologous to sequences on rice chromosome 3, 12% had matches with sequences on other rice chromosomes, and 39% had no matches with rice sequences at all. Limited homology was found between wheat ESTs on homoeologous group 4 and the Arabidopsis genome. Forty-two percent of the homoeologous group 4 ESTs could be classified into functional categories on the basis of blastX searches against all protein databases. (shrink)

Working within the reader perspective approach to biblical hermeneutics, a recent series of empirical studies has tested the theory that the readers’ psychological type preferences between sensing and intuition (perceiving functions) and between feeling and thinking (judging functions) shape distinctive readings of biblical texts. This study advances the debate by distinguishing between the two orientations within which the functions are expressed (introverted and extraverted). The added clarity offered by this refinement is illustrated by the distinctive voices of introverted intuition and (...) introverted sensing engaging with the Matthean Beatitudes, eight verses rich in materials to engage the perceiving functions. (shrink)

The objectives of this study were to develop a high-density chromosome bin map of homoeologous group 7 in hexaploid wheat, to identify gene distribution in these chromosomes, and to perform comparative studies of wheat with rice and barley. We mapped 2148 loci from 919 EST clones onto group 7 chromosomes of wheat. In the majority of cases the numbers of loci were significantly lower in the centromeric regions and tended to increase in the distal regions. The level of duplicated loci (...) in this group was 24% with most of these loci being localized toward the distal regions. One hundred nineteen EST probes that hybridized to three fragments and mapped to the three group 7 chromosomes were designated landmark probes and were used to construct a consensus homoeologous group 7 map. An additional 49 probes that mapped to 7AS, 7DS, and the ancestral translocated segment involving 7BS also were designated landmarks. Landmark probe orders and comparative maps of wheat, rice, and barley were produced on the basis of corresponding rice BAC/PAC and genetic markers that mapped on chromosomes 6 and 8 of rice. Identification of landmark ESTs and development of consensus maps may provide a framework of conserved coding regions predating the evolution of wheat genomes. (shrink)

analogy, the similarity along with difference, among meanings, among sorts of thinking, and among realities. Analogy theory ori­ginated with *Aristotle in its three main parts: analogy of meaning, analogous thinking, and analogy of being. There were some ante­cedents in *Plato, where the names of Forms and of participating things are the same but differ in meaning, and the notion of ‘being’ is said to differ with what we are talking about, for example Forms versus physical things (Sophist). Systematic use of (...) the three elem­ents to unify philosophy and to resolve problems is, however, Aristotle's invention along with the idea that *metaphor is a species of analogy. Aristotle distinguished what were later called analogies of attribution, based on causation, signs, symptoms, and represen­tations (medical skill, medical supplies; hat/head cover, hat/in pic­ture), from analogy based on proportionality, A: B :: C : D; where the common implicit predicate is related in meaning (supplied food. (shrink)

Although undergraduate students are exposed to ethical issues through class assignments, discussions, and readings, they typically do not have first hand experience with business dilemmas. Student opinions on ethical standards and behavior in American business have received scant attention in the literature. The purpose of the study is to provide additional information to both educators and organizations about the ethical perceptions of students. Furthermore, the study contrasts student responses to business and community leaders' responses obtained in a prior study conducted (...) by Touche Ross (1988). The findings from this study are based on an opinion survey about ethics in American business, completed by 476 liberal arts and business students attending a private, religiously affiliated college in New York State. The data indicate numerous differences in perceptions between students and business and community leaders. Differences were also found when students were classified by school (Arts & Science versus Business) and by gender. Overall, students appear to place a strong value on education. Students are the source of new entrants to the business world and the foundation for ethical structures being built by organizations. The findings from this study should assist both educators and employers in the development of necessary programs to maximize the ethical potential of their constituents. (shrink)

Prominent tuberculosis (TB) actors are invoking solidarity to motivate and justify collective action to address TB, including through intensified development and implementation (D&I) of technologies such as drugs and diagnostics. We characterize the ethical challenges associated with D&I of new TB technologies by drawing on stakeholder perspectives from 23 key informant interviews and we articulate the ethical implications of solidarity for TB technology D&I. The fundamental ethical issue facing TB technological D&I is a failure within and beyond the TB community (...) to stand in solidarity with persons with TB in addressing the complex sociopolitical contexts of technological D&I. The failure in solidarity relates to two further ethical challenges raised by respondents: skewed power dynamics that hinder D&I and uncertainties around weighing risks and benefits associated with new technologies. Respondents identified advocacy and participatory research practices as necessary to address such challenges and to motivate sustained collective action to accelerate toward TB elimination. We present the first empirical examination of bioethical accounts of solidarity in public and global health. Our study suggests that solidarity allows us better to understand and address the ethical challenges that arrest the D&I of new TB technologies. Solidarity lends credence to policies and practices that address the relational nature of illness and health through collective action. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of MoralsIan RossDavid Hume. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. Tom L. Beauchamp, editor. The Clarendon Edition of the Works of David Hume. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.An edition of Hume's philosophic writings on rigorous, modern bibliographic principles has long been a scholarly desideratum. Readers in the many fields in which Hume's thought and style have made a profound impression have (...) basically relied on the originals or derivatives of efforts of the Victorian era. One is Hume's Philosophical Works (4 v., London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1874-75), edited by the Oxford dons, T. H. Green and T. H. Grose. Well-known for his idealist philosophy and theory of liberalism, Green contributed introductions to the first and second volumes criticizing Hume from an anti-empirical standpoint. Grose offered a "History of [Hume's] Editions" as an introduction to the third volume, and claimed to have revised Hume's text throughout. This edition has the virtue of comprehensiveness, but is deficient in its offering of variant readings. Later there came from Oxford University Press editions of the Treatise of Human Nature (1888), deemed generally sound, and the two Enquiries (1894), marred by departures from Hume's text, prepared by a prominent civil servant, Sir Lawrence Amherst Selby-Bigge, whose chief contribution was to provide useful analytical indices. An attempt at achieving higher editorial standards was made by P. H. Nidditch, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Sheffield, in a "second" edition of Selby-Bigge's Treatise (1976) and a "third" edition of his text of the Enquiries (1975). Limits were imposed by Oxford University Press, apparently unwilling to make more then small changes in the existing pages. Nidditch announced (Enquiries, 1975, at p.348, n.2) that he had a "fresh" edition in preparation, but he did not live to complete this project.In the event, the challenge to produce a critical edition of Hume's philosophical, political, and literary writings was canvassed at early meetings of the Hume Society formed in 1973. Thereafter, in 1982, a team of general editors was formed by T. L. Beauchamp, D. F. Norton, and M. A. Stewart, determined to organize and finish the task in hand, and Oxford University Press finally conceded it was time to replace Selby-Bigge. With the appearance of Tom Beauchamp's "critical edition" of the second Enquiry (hereafter identified as EPM), published on 4 August 1999, but bearing the date 1998, the long wait for a reliable text, bibliographic apparatus, and ancillary scholarship, worthy of Hume, must be declared over.If we grant that it is appropriate to introduce the new Clarendon Edition of the Works of David Hume with the piece he deemed "best," it must also be asked why he made this judgment. Philosophers have generally held that his Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40) is the most profound and searching statement of his epistemological and moral thought, but its seeming lack of immediate success with readers made Hume dissatisfied with it. Such were his negative feelings, coupled with irritation at attacks on him focused on this "juvenile" work, that he partially repudiated the Treatise at the end of his life. He wrote an "Advertisement" to this effect, and it was inserted as a preface to the authoritative and posthumous 1777 edition of his Essays and Treatises. Here he stated he was "sensible of the error of going to the press too early, and he cast the whole [of [End Page 280] the Treatise] anew in the following pieces [including EPM], where some negligences in his former reasoning and more in the expression, are, he hopes, corrected" (EPM Intro., xii-xiii, n.4).On the evidence of Beauchamp's editorial labors, it would appear that EPM is Hume's "best" work in this sense. It represents the most thorough recasting of source material provided by the Treatise. Its essential moral principles and psychological insights about the passions are retained, but "readability and elegance" are achieved by pruning, simplifying, and compacting the Treatise's complex teaching, while adding a wealth of illustrative material drawn from Hume's mature reflection on his subject and... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of MoralsIan RossDavid Hume. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. Tom L. Beauchamp, editor. The Clarendon Edition of the Works of David Hume. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.An edition of Hume's philosophic writings on rigorous, modern bibliographic principles has long been a scholarly desideratum. Readers in the many fields in which Hume's thought and style have made a profound impression have (...) basically relied on the originals or derivatives of efforts of the Victorian era. One is Hume's Philosophical Works (4 v., London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1874-75), edited by the Oxford dons, T. H. Green and T. H. Grose. Well-known for his idealist philosophy and theory of liberalism, Green contributed introductions to the first and second volumes criticizing Hume from an anti-empirical standpoint. Grose offered a "History of [Hume's] Editions" as an introduction to the third volume, and claimed to have revised Hume's text throughout. This edition has the virtue of comprehensiveness, but is deficient in its offering of variant readings. Later there came from Oxford University Press editions of the Treatise of Human Nature (1888), deemed generally sound, and the two Enquiries (1894), marred by departures from Hume's text, prepared by a prominent civil servant, Sir Lawrence Amherst Selby-Bigge, whose chief contribution was to provide useful analytical indices. An attempt at achieving higher editorial standards was made by P. H. Nidditch, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Sheffield, in a "second" edition of Selby-Bigge's Treatise (1976) and a "third" edition of his text of the Enquiries (1975). Limits were imposed by Oxford University Press, apparently unwilling to make more then small changes in the existing pages. Nidditch announced (Enquiries, 1975, at p.348, n.2) that he had a "fresh" edition in preparation, but he did not live to complete this project.In the event, the challenge to produce a critical edition of Hume's philosophical, political, and literary writings was canvassed at early meetings of the Hume Society formed in 1973. Thereafter, in 1982, a team of general editors was formed by T. L. Beauchamp, D. F. Norton, and M. A. Stewart, determined to organize and finish the task in hand, and Oxford University Press finally conceded it was time to replace Selby-Bigge. With the appearance of Tom Beauchamp's "critical edition" of the second Enquiry (hereafter identified as EPM), published on 4 August 1999, but bearing the date 1998, the long wait for a reliable text, bibliographic apparatus, and ancillary scholarship, worthy of Hume, must be declared over.If we grant that it is appropriate to introduce the new Clarendon Edition of the Works of David Hume with the piece he deemed "best," it must also be asked why he made this judgment. Philosophers have generally held that his Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40) is the most profound and searching statement of his epistemological and moral thought, but its seeming lack of immediate success with readers made Hume dissatisfied with it. Such were his negative feelings, coupled with irritation at attacks on him focused on this "juvenile" work, that he partially repudiated the Treatise at the end of his life. He wrote an "Advertisement" to this effect, and it was inserted as a preface to the authoritative and posthumous 1777 edition of his Essays and Treatises. Here he stated he was "sensible of the error of going to the press too early, and he cast the whole [of [End Page 280] the Treatise] anew in the following pieces [including EPM], where some negligences in his former reasoning and more in the expression, are, he hopes, corrected" (EPM Intro., xii-xiii, n.4).On the evidence of Beauchamp's editorial labors, it would appear that EPM is Hume's "best" work in this sense. It represents the most thorough recasting of source material provided by the Treatise. Its essential moral principles and psychological insights about the passions are retained, but "readability and elegance" are achieved by pruning, simplifying, and compacting the Treatise's complex teaching, while adding a wealth of illustrative material drawn from Hume's mature reflection on his subject and... (shrink)

The four principles approach to biomedical ethics (4PBE) has, since the 1970s, been increasingly developed as a universal bioethics method. Despite its wide acceptance and popularity, the 4PBE has received many challenges to its cross-cultural plausibility. This paper first specifies the principles and characteristics of ancient Chinese medical ethics (ACME), then makes a comparison between ACME and the 4PBE with a view to testing out the 4PBE's cross-cultural plausibility when applied to one particular but very extensive and prominent cultural context. (...) The result shows that the concepts of respect for autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence and justice are clearly identifiable in ACME. Yet, being influenced by certain socio-cultural factors, those applying the 4PBE in Chinese society may tend to adopt a "beneficence-oriented", rather than an "autonomy-oriented" approach, which, in general, is dissimilar to the practice of contemporary Western bioethics, where "autonomy often triumphs". (shrink)

Oxford Scholarly Classics brings together a number of great academic works from the archives of Oxford University Press. Reissued in a uniform series design, they will enable libraries, scholars, and students to gain fresh access to some of the finest scholarship of the last century.

Xenotransplantation, or the use of animal cells, tissues and organs for humans, has been promoted as an important solution to the worldwide shortage of organs. While scientific studies continue to be done to address problems of rejection and the possibility of animal-to-human virus transfer, socio-ethical and legal questions have also been raised around informed consent, life-long monitoring, animal welfare and animal rights, and appropriate regulatory practices. Many calls have also been made to consult publics before policy decisions are made. This (...) paper describes the Canadian public consultation process on xenotransplantation carried out by the Canadian Public Health Association in an arm’s length process from Health Canada, the ministry overseeing government health policy and regulation. Focusing on six citizen fora conducted around the country patterned after the citizen jury deliberative approach, the paper describes the citizen panelists’ recommendations to hold off on proceeding with clinical trials and the rationales behind this recommendation. The consultation process is discussed in the context of constructive technology assessment, a framework which argues for broader input into earlier stages of technology innovation, particularly at the technology design stage. (shrink)

As a result of increased interest in global health, more and more medical students and trainees from the.

L'A. étudie le récit d'Eunapius concernant le règne d'Arcadius à partir de la mort de Théodose en 395 jusqu'en 404. Eunapius de Sarde est un sophiste, un philosophe et un historien grec païen qui a vécu de 347 à environ 414 ; il est un exemple de la rédaction helléniste et son travail peut être classé dans la fiction historique. Il s'oppose aux changements politiques, sociaux, économiques et religieux du 4e siècle ainsi qu'aux régimes de Constantin et Théodose. Son héros (...) est Julien l'Apostat. (shrink)