The experience of newborn screening for Krabbe disease in New York State demonstrates the ethical problems that arise when screening programs are expanded in the absence of true understanding of the diseases involved. In its 5 years of testing and millions of dollars in costs, there have been very few benefits, and the testing has uncovered potential cases of late-onset disease that raise difficult ethical questions in their own right. For these reasons, we argue that Krabbe screening should only be (...) continued as a research project that includes the informed consent of parents to the testing. (shrink)

The study aimed to identify the effect of applying detection and prevention tools for career fraud in combating and preventing fraud and reducing its risks through an applied study on Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza Strip, Palestine. To achieve the objectives of the study, the researchers used the questionnaire as a main tool to collect data, and the descriptive and analytical approach to conducting the study. The study population consisted of (501) supervisory employees working at MOH in Gaza Strip, (...) Palestine. The researchers used the stratified random sample method and the multiple regression method to measure the effect. The study concluded a set of results, the most important of which is a positive evaluation among respondents about the levels of application of tools to detect and prevent job fraud within MOH, and the presence of a high interest in tools to prevent job fraud during the implementation of its various work. The study recommended the necessity for the Palestinian National Authority to develop and approve laws regulating health sector, so that those laws guarantee the prevention of conflicts of interest, especially for the category of doctors, by preventing job duplication of doctors working in the government sector. Also study recommended the need for MOH to adopt principles of health sector governance and begin immediately to implement them. This process to ensure transparency, disclosure and accountability in the business framework in a manner that realizes the effective protection of stakeholders and does not compromise or discriminate in the application of these principles, which ensures that all forms of job fraud are organized in an organized manner and within fixed legal frameworks. (shrink)

Islamic ethics; Islamic civilization; Western influences.

On Sikh ethics; includes brief biographies of Sikh religious leaders.

What role does the wild duck play in Ibsen's famous drama? I argue that, besides mirroring the fate of the human cast members, the duck is acting as animal subject in a quasi-experiment, conducted in a private setting. Analysed from this perspective, the play allows us to discern the epistemological and ethical dimensions of the new scientific animal practice (systematic observation of animal behaviour under artificial conditions) emerging precesely at that time. Ibsen's play stages the clash between a scientific and (...) a romantic understanding of animals that still constitutes the backdrop of most contemporary debates over animals in research. Whereas the scientific understanding reduces the animal's behaviour, as well as its environment, to discrete and modifiable elements, the romantic view regards animals as being at one with (or violently disconnected from) their natural surroundings. (shrink)

Everyone knows that Wales is a land of scenery. It is also known to have local customs and usages, and a peculiar language; in fact it has also its own history and historical memories. By virtue of these things Wales is a nation with its own life and culture, which merits study and demands respect.

On 17 November 1820 there appeared a Dutch translation of Oersted's pamphlet concerning the discovery of the effect of an electric current on a magnetic needle suspended in the earth's magnetic field . In the Netherlands a number of physicists were immediately interested in the electromagnetic and electrodynamic discoveries made by Oersted and the French physicists. They repeated and extended the experiments, and constructed new modifications of the galvanic battery for better results. They made no fundamental discoveries in this field (...) of physics, but the fact that their work was important follows from the experiments of van Beek, which confirmed Amp`ere's theory of molecular magnetic currents. Van Beek as well as Speyert van der Eyk corresponded with Amp`ere about electromagnetic and electrodynamic phenomena. In the Utrecht Universiteitsmuseum there is an unpublished letter of Amp`ere to van Beek, which is published at the end of this article. (shrink)

Speeches of the author on theory of knowledge in the context of Islamic philosophy.

After Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff had passed away on 1 March 1911, his pupil Charles Marinus van Deventer wrote a very personal ‘in memoriam’ in the Dutch literary periodical De Gids, pointing out that van't Hoff had merely been interested in scientific facts, not in the people discovering these facts. Van't Hoff considered the study of the history of chemistry, although by no means uncongenial, a matter of little importance. He once even said: ‘To me historical research appears to be (...) appropriate for a chemist in the decline of life, when he no longer creates professional ideas, and when the laboratory has become a burden to him’. Although van Deventer had studied physical chemistry at van't Hoff's Amsterdam laboratory and had been his assistant from 1885 until 1893, he disagreed with this verdict. Van Deventer was not only a capable physical chemist, he was also an active member of the Tachtigers, a circle of Dutch poets who around 1880 brought about a renewal in Dutch literature. He took a special interest in Greek philosophy. He did not graduate with van't Hoff, but with his colleague Jan Willem Gunning . His thesis was not based on physical-chemical, but on historical research: Schetsen uit de Geschiedenis van de Scheikunde . From 1922 to 1923 he lectured on the history of chemistry at Utrecht University. His fascinating lectures were published as Grepen uit de Historie der Chemie . This work reveals his particular interest in the development of chemical concepts. (shrink)

This paper describes the introduction of Liebig's ideas on agricultural chemistry into the Netherlands. The aversion to Liebig held by the Utrecht professor G. J. Mulder hindered the direct influence that might have been borne by Liebig's own writings; the introduction was made principally by means of Dutch translations of the text-books of the Scottish agricultural chemist J. F. W. Johnston, who generally followed Liebig's ideas.

Probably to most students of Moral Philosophy there comes a time when they feel a vague sense of dissatisfaction with the whole subject. And the sense of dissatisfaction tends to grow rather than to diminish. It is not so much that the positions, and still more the arguments, of particular thinkers seem unconvincing, though this is true. It is rather that the aim of the subject becomes increasingly obscure. "What," it is asked, "are we really going to learn by Moral (...) Philosophy?" "What are books on Moral Philosophy really trying to show, and when their aim is clear, why are they so unconvincing and artificial?" And again: "Why is it so difficult to substitute anything better?" Personally, I have been led by growing dissatisfaction of this kind to wonder whether the reason may not be that the subject, at any rate as usually understood, consists in the attempt to answer an improper question. And in this article, I shall venture to contend that the existence of the whole subject, as usually understood, rests on a mistake, and on a mistake parallel to that on which rests, as I think, the subject usually called the Theory of Knowledge. (shrink)

In this paper, I will reread the history of molecular genetics from a psychoanalytical angle, analysing it as a case history. Building on the developmental theories of Freud and his followers, I will distinguish four stages, namely: (1) oedipal childhood, notably the epoch of model building (1943–1953); (2) the latency period, with a focus on the development of basic skills (1953–1989); (3) adolescence, exemplified by the Human Genome Project, with its fierce conflicts, great expectations and grandiose claims (1989–2003) and (4) (...) adulthood (2003–present) during which revolutionary research areas such as molecular biology and genomics have achieved a certain level of normalcy—have evolved into a normal science. I will indicate how a psychoanalytical assessment conducted in this manner may help us to interpret and address some of the key normative issues that have been raised with regard to molecular genetics over the years, such as ‘relevance’, ‘responsible innovation’ and ‘promise management’. (shrink)