Bovine fetuin, the first fetal protein to be described, has recently been shown to be a species homologue of a well known human plasma protein ‐ α2HS glycoprotein (α2HS). The fetuins are now known to be members of the cystatin superfamily. The structural properties of the six fetuins that have been fully sequenced are compared. Despite the structural homology of these proteins, their described properties in the literature make them appear to be quite different. The diverse in vitro properties claimed (...) for fetuin/α2HS are reviewed. In vivo, fetuins are involved in the acute phase response. In development, in all species studied so far, fetuins are present in a specific cell population that forms the developing neocortex. The possible functional significance of this distribution is discussed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dogs and MonstersObservations on the Evacuation of Afghanistan and the Intersection of Human Rights and the AnthropoceneK. M. Ferebee (bio)On August 28, 2021, former Royal Marine and charity worker Pen Farthing was evacuated from Afghanistan with almost two hundred dogs and cats that his Kabul animal charity, Nowzad Dogs, had rescued. The role of the British government in this evacuation remains hotly contested: At the time, the British Ministry (...) of Defence tweeted (Fig. 1) that Farthing's escape had been assisted by the British military, but Farthing later disputed this claim and argued that his rescue was not the result of high-level intervention in the British government. In January 2022 controversy erupted around the emergence of documents suggesting that Prime Minister Boris Johnson had lied to Parliament about the personal role that he played in just such an intervention. Notably, Nowzad's Afghan staff members were not evacuated alongside Farthing and the animals, though they would eventually escape to Pakistan. Following Farthing's escape, the British government failed to evacuate hundreds of British citizens and residents (Merriman and Ghouri), as well as many more Afghans who had worked on behalf of British forces. The Nowzad Dogs evacuation became a site of symbolic struggle over Britain's respect (or lack thereof) for human rights. "What a story to tell the world: Britain values dogs more than Afghan people," the headline of an opinion piece in the Guardian (Hinsliff) read.The story of Nowzad Dogs is interesting to me not only as a tale of human-nonhuman relations, but also because I was, at the time it occurred, volunteering within the Afghan aid community to assist relatives of a friend, British Afghans who had been visiting Kabul when the government [End Page 52] collapsed. The family repeatedly asked for assistance from the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office—assistance that never appeared. Ultimately, due to the generosity of donors and the coordination of a volunteer team, the family was able to flee to Pakistan, where they boarded a commercial flight to London. This case was a particularly stark and powerful illustration of the negotiations of rights and value that took place during and following the evacuation. It seemed nonsensical, in August 2021, to suppose that British citizens, including British children (the family I worked with included a six- and an eleven-year-old who were British citizens), would be abandoned while Afghan dogs had their rights prioritized. As I hope to demonstrate here, however, such an incident becomes comprehensible and even logical when it is understood as part of a specifically Anthropocene manifestation of subjectivity.Upendra Baxi suggests that 1948's Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) marks a broad shift from the era of "modern" (42) human rights (which began with the American and French Revolutions) to the era of "contemporary" (42) human rights. His periodization links these eras in human rights to shifts in the ideology of capitalism and empire. The "modern" era of human rights, he writes, "signals a whole variety of ideological 'justifications' for colonization and world domination" and "provides a register of major development in industrial capitalism" (42), while the "contemporary" era of human rights "is based on the premise of radical self-determination" (46). Such a periodization also brings human rights into close alignment with the Anthropocene, which is rooted in the capitalist-colonial Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, yet often dated most concretely to the circa-1950 shift that some (such as J. R. McNeill and Peter Engelke) label the "Great Acceleration." Indeed, one could reasonably appropriate Baxi's terms and speak of "modern" and "contemporary" Anthropocenes mapped identically onto the global timeline.I propose to use the 2021 Afghan evacuation as a site from which to explore how human rights and the Anthropocene have together coproduced certain forms of subjectivity that are essential for the continued smooth functioning of world-ecological capitalism. These new forms of subjectivity are necessary to sustain the important fiction of individual [End Page 53] agency and value and conceal the ways in which the Anthropocene moment renders this fiction meaningless. Ultimately, I paint a picture of an Anthropocene without any human agency at all. I want... (shrink)

Haydar el-Herevî Horasan’dan Osmanlı topraklarına gelen önemli âlimlerdendir. Teftâzânî’nin şeçkin bir talebesi olan bu âlim I. Mehmed’ten büyük saygı görerek onun tarafından himaye edilmiştir. Herevî, Zemahşerî’nin el-Keşşâf’ı üzerine yazdığı şerhi büyük övgü ifadeleriyle I. Mehmed’e ithaf etmiş, ithafın yer aldığı mukaddimede hayat hikayesiyle ilgili önemli ayrıntılar vermiştir. Osmanlı topraklarında geçirdiği uzun yıllar sonra Timur’un oğlu Şahruh ile irtibat kuran Herevî, el-Keşşâf şerhi mukaddimesini tekrardan kaleme alarak aynı eseri bu sefer Şahruh’a ithaf etmiştir. Herevî’nin bu yeni patronaj ilişkisi mukaddimenin ikinci versiyonundan (...) öğrenilmektedir. İkinci versiyonda sadece ithaf kısmı değiştirilmemiş, yeni haminin kimliğiyle irtibatlı olarak muhteva da yeni- den kurgulanmıştır. İlk versiyonda bulunmayan önemli biyografik ayrıntılar ikinci versiyonda yer almaktadır. Mukaddimenin iki versiyonu Herevî biyografisinin neredeyse yegâne kaynağıdır. Bu makalede mukaddimenin ikinci versiyonu ilk defa gün yüzüne çıkarılmış ve her iki versiyonda verilen bilgiler bir araya getirilerek Herevî’nin biyografisi inşa edilmiştir. İki versiyonda herhangi bir tarih verilmemiş, sadece bazı şehirlerdeki ikamet süreleri belirtilmiştir. Biyografi inşa edilirken anlatıda oluşan boşluklar tarihi olaylardan hareketle doldurulmuş ve tarihlendirme yapılmıştır. Bahsedilen olaylar, yapılan nitelemeler ve verilen ikamet süreleri itibara alınarak Herevî’nin hayatının yaklaşık kırk yıllık bölümü tam olarak tarihlendirilmiş, Serahs’tan başlayarak sırasıyla Şîraz, Tebriz, Şirvan, Bursa, Edirne ve tekrar Horasan’a uzanan yıllara dair bütünlüklü bir tablo ortaya konulmuştur. Bu hayat hikayesi ulema-sultan ilişkileri, siyasî gelişmelerin ilim hayatına yansımaları ve hayatını ilim yolculuklarında geçiren bir âlimin zihin dünyası hakkında eşsiz bilgiler sunmaktadır. (shrink)

Objective To study how doctors care for their patients, both medically and as fellow humans, through observing their conduct in patient–doctor encounters. Design Qualitative study in which 101 videotaped consultations were observed and analysed using a Grounded Theory approach, generating explanatory categories through a hermeneutical analysis of the taped consultations. Setting A 500-bed general teaching hospital in Norway. Participants 71 doctors working in clinical non-psychiatric departments and their patients. Results The doctors were concerned about their patients' health and how their (...) medical knowledge could be of service. This medical focus often over-rode other important aspects of the consultations, especially existential elements. The doctors actively directed the focus away from their patients' existential concerns onto medical facts and rarely addressed the personal aspects of a patient's condition, treating them in a biomechanical manner. At the same time, however, the doctors attended to their patients with courteousness, displaying a polite and friendly attitude and emphasising the relationship between them. Conclusions The study suggests that the main failing of patient–doctor encounters is not a lack of courteous manners, but the moral offence patients experience when existential concerns are ignored. Improving doctors' social and communication skills cannot resolve this moral problem, which appears to be intrinsically bound to modern medical practice. Acknowledging this moral offence would, however, be the first step towards minimising the effects thereof. (shrink)

In Nicolaus Cusanus on Faith and the Intellect: A Case Study in 15th-Century Fides-Ratio Controversy, K.M. Ziebart presents an account of the Cusan epistemology as a fascinating late-medieval attempt to definitively harmonize faith and reason.

This essay discusses an alternative interpretation of the term “Dasein” as Heidegger uses it in Being and Time and, in particular, the possibility that Dasein is meant to contain an inherent form of intersubjectivity to which we must “return” in order to achieve authenticity. In doing so, I build on the work of John Haugeland and his interpretation of Dasein as a mass term, while exploring the implications such an interpretation has on Heidegger’s conception of “authenticity”. Ultimately, this paper aims (...) to take seriously Heidegger’s claim to be moving past the isolated Cartesian subject and towards a view of authentic human existence that is cognizant of the way our identities are always formed within a pre-existing community. In addition, since many interpretations of Heidegger have argued that “the Anyone” is representative of all possible forms of community, I consider how this alternative understanding of Dasein as intersubjective can shed new light on critical remarks Heidegger makes about “the Anyone”. Thus, I argue that by reinterpreting Dasein as community, we can find more coherence between Heidegger’s otherwise conflicting conceptions of authenticity and “the Anyone”. (shrink)

Nazariyat, Journal for the History of Islamic Philosophy and Sciences, issued twice a year in English and Turkish (Nazariyat İslam Felsefe ve Bilim Tarihi Araştırmaları Dergisi), is a refereed international journal. It publishes original studies, critical editions of classical texts and book reviews on Islamic philosophy, kalām, theoretical aspects of Sufism and the history of sciences. The goal of Nazariyat is to contribute to the discovery, examination and reinterpretation of the theoretical traditions in the history of Islamic thought, by giving (...) special attention to the post-classical period of it. **ISSN: 2148-8088 E-ISBN: 2547-9415**. (shrink)

Narrative ethics taps into an inherent human need to tell our own stories centred on our own moral values and to have those stories heard and acknowledged. However, not everyone’s words are afforded equal power. The use of narrative ethics in bioethical decision-making is problematized by a disparity in whose stories are told, whose stories are heard, and whose stories are believed. Here, I conduct an analysis of narrative ethics through a critical theory lens to show how entrenched patterns of (...) narrative neglect in medicine are harming not only our capacity to make use of narrative ethics but also our capacity to deliver effective healthcare. To illustrate this point, I use three examples where the patient’s gender affects how their stories unfold: autism, weight, and pain management. From these, I argue that the use of narrative ethics without the application of a critical theory lens risks the exacerbation of what Miranda Fricker refers to as “testimonial injustice,” the prima facie harm experienced by individuals whose credibility is undermined by others’ prejudices. Finally, I suggest that narrative ethics can be a powerful tool for mitigating oppressive practices in medicine if we couple it with critical analysis that enables us to understand the power dynamics at play in storytelling. (shrink)

BackgroundInformed consent as stipulated in regulatory human research guidelines requires volunteers to be well-informed about what will happen to them in a trial. However, researchers may be faced with the challenge of how to ensure that a volunteer agreeing to take part in a clinical trial is truly informed. This study aimed to find out volunteers’ comprehension of informed consent and voluntary participation in Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) clinical trials during the registration cohort.MethodsWe conducted a qualitative study among volunteers who (...) were enrolled in the registration cohort of HIV clinical trials in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. A purposive sampling strategy was used to obtain twenty study participants. The data were collected between June and September 2020 using a semi-structured interview guide. In-depth interviews were used to collect the data to obtain deep insights of the individual study participants on the comprehension of informed consent and participation in the clinical trial. A thematic analysis approach was used to analyze the data. Themes and subthemes were supported by the quotes from the participants.ResultsVolunteers described comprehension of informed consent from different perspectives. They reported that various components of the informed consent such as study procedure, confidentiality, risk and benefits were grasped during engagement meetings. Furthermore, the volunteers’ decision to participate in the registration cohort was voluntary. However, trial aspects such as health insurance, free condoms, and medical checkups could have indirectly influenced their reluctance to withdraw from the study.ConclusionEngagement meetings may increase the comprehension of informed consent among potential participants for HIV clinical trials. However, trial incentives may influence participation, and thus future research should focus on the challenges of giving incentives in the study. This will ensure comprehension and voluntary participation in the context of HIV clinical trials. (shrink)

Although science supplies medicine's “gold standard,” knowledge exercised in the care of patients is, like moral knowing, a matter of narrative, practical reason. Physicians draw on case narrative to store experience and to apply and qualify the general rules of medical science. Literature aids in this activity by stimulating moral imagination and by requiring its readers to engage in the retrospective construction of a situated, subjective account of events. Narrative truths are provisional, uncertain, derived from narrators whose standpoints are always (...) situated, particular, and uncertain, but open to comparison and reinterpretation. Reading is thus a model for knowing in both morality and clinical medicine. While principles remain essential to bioethics and science must always inform good clinical practice, the tendency to collapse morality into principles and medicine into science impoverishes both practices. Moral knowing is not separable from clinical judgment. While ethics must be open to discussion and interpretation by patients, families, and society, it is nevertheless substantively and epistemologically an inextricable part of a physician's clinical practice. (shrink)

Medical ethics, principles, persons, and perspectives is discussed under three headings: History, Theory, and Practice. Under Theory, the author will say something about some different approaches to the study and discussion of ethical issues in medicine—especially those based on principles, persons, or perspectives. Under Practice, the author will discuss how one perspectives based approach, hermeneutics, might help in relation first to everyday ethical issues and then to public controversies. In that context some possible advantages of moving from controversy to conversation (...) will be explored; and that will then be illustrated with reference to a current controversy about the use of human embryos in stem cell therapy research. The paper begins with history, and it begins in the author’s home city of Edinburgh. (shrink)

Considerable attention has been paid in recent years to Catullus 63. A number of salient features have been discussed: the psychological study of emotions; the use of animal imagery; the theme of marriage and love. There have also been some helpful studies on smaller, though important, aspects of the poem such as its use of ring composition or Catullus′ inventive treatment of the challenging Galliambic metre. But little work has been done on the literary background of poem 63 apart from (...) the question of whether or not Catullus was following an Alexandrian model. I shall suggest that the basic narrative of the poem, and the way in which Catullus has handled it, have literary antecedents which have influenced the poet. The final product, however, still remains a very original piece of work. (shrink)

Most commentators apply the phrase ‘vitans onus…iugi’ not only to the heifer but to Attis himself. When they ask what iugum Attis is avoiding, the immediate context provides no obvious answer. They are therefore compelled to interpret the iugum either in the light of a much earlier passage or in the light of a much later one. Neither procedure is satisfactory. On the other hand, at least one editor has proposed that the phrase ‘vitans onus…iugi’ does not apply to Attis (...) himself but to the heifer alone. The comparison between Attis and the heifer then lies only in their frenzied speed; the yoke-avoiding action is external to the comparison and merely heightens the picture of the charging heifer. The obvious difficulty with this view is that the concept of a yoke, and more generally of avoiding servitude, plays an important role relevant to Attis later on in the poem. From line 50 onwards Attis sees himself as an erifuga anxious to escape from slavery to Cybele. And the account of Cybele's lion, sent to round him up, twice refers to the notion of freeing from a yoke. Both these traditional approaches concentrate on the literal meaning of the phrase vitans onus…iugi: they assume that the yoke itself is important and that it either does or does not make sense when applied to Attis. But if we focus instead upon the action which the whole phrase vitans onus…iugi suggests, then the description of the heifer has an apt application to Attis within its own immediate context. (shrink)

Abortion is forbidden under normal circumstances by nearly all the major world religions. Traditionally, abortion was not deemed permissible by Muslim scholars. Shiite scholars considered it forbidden after implantation of the fertilised ovum. However, Sunni scholars have held various opinions on the matter, but all agreed that after 4 months gestation abortion was not permitted. In addition, classical Islamic scholarship had only considered threats to maternal health as a reason for therapeutic abortion. Recently, scholars have begun to consider the effect (...) of severe fetal deformities on the mother, the families and society. This has led some scholars to reconsider the prohibition on abortion in limited circumstances. This article reviews the Islamic basis for the prohibition of abortion and the reasons for its justification. Contemporary rulings from leading Shiite scholars and from the Sunni school of thought are presented and reviewed. The status of abortion in Muslim countries is reviewed, with special emphasis on the therapeutic abortion law passed by the Iranian Parliament in 2003. This law approved therapeutic abortion before 16 weeks of gestation under limited circumstances, including medical conditions related to fetal and maternal health. Recent measures in Iran provide an opportunity for the Muslim scholars in other countries to review their traditional stance on abortion. (shrink)

Investigation into the reality of time can be pursued within the ontological domain or it can also span human thought and natural language. I propose to approach time by correlating three domains of inquiry: metaphysical time, the human concept of time, and temporal reference in natural language, entertaining the possibility of what I call a ‘horizontal reduction’ and ‘vertical reduction’. I present a view of temporalityL/E as epistemic modality, drawing on evidence from the L domain and its correlates in the (...) E and M domains. On this view, the human concept of time is a complex, ‘molecular’ concept and can be broken down into primitive concepts that are modal in nature, featuring as degrees of epistemic commitment to representations of states of affairs. I present evidence from tensed and tenseless languages and point out its compatibility with the view of real time as metaphysical modality. (shrink)

An Institute of Medical Ethics working party argues that an ethically desirable relationship of mutual empowerment between patient and clinician is more likely to be achieved if patients understand the ground rules of medical confidentiality. It identifies and illustrates ambiguities in the General Medical Council's guidance on AIDS and confidentiality, and relates this to the practice of different doctors and specialties. Matters might be clarified, it suggests, by identifying moral factors which tend to recur in medical decisions about maintaining or (...) breaching confidentiality. The working party argues that two such factors are particularly important: the patient's need to exercise informed choice and the doctor's primary responsibility to his or her own patients. (shrink)

Immediately after the publication of Darwin's book on the origin of species, Engels, having familiarized himself with it, wrote to Marx on December 12, 1859: "All in all, Darwin, whom I am reading right now, is superb. Teleology had hitherto not yet been destroyed in one of its aspects, and now this has been done. Moreover, hitherto there has never been so sweeping an attempt to prove historical development in nature, especially with such success." Soon Marx enlarged upon the evaluation (...) of Darwinism. In his letter of December 19, 1860, he commented that this theory "provides a foundation in natural history for our views." It is therefore no accident that Engels, in developing the principles of dialectical materialism and problems of the dialectics of nature, interested himself so deeply and comprehensively in the theory of evolution. (shrink)

This study aims to examine the development of diversity and inclusion (D&I) literature and identify its prominent themes and blind spots. The research was conducted using bibliometric analysis on the Web of Science database and included 2510 publications. Results showed that the development of D&I literature had increased exponentially since the 1960s, mainly due to different political and societal events. The geographic development showed that research was primarily conducted in developed countries where quotas and other legislation are implemented. The thematic (...) development revealed a stable but narrow focus on diversity management, board diversity, and team diversity, with little attention to inclusion. The keyword analysis strongly emphasized surface-level diversity, such as gender, race, and cultural diversity, while deep-level diversity received less attention. This study concludes that previous D&I literature has mainly focused on the financial effects of D&I and neglected other elements, such as the effects on social performance, its ethical implications, and the relationship between diversity and inclusion. The study recommends future research to expand the interpretation of diversity, examine the relationship between diversity and inclusion, and explore the effects of diversity on non-financial outcomes such as social performance and ethics. This study provides a valuable contribution to the field of business ethics by highlighting the blind spots in D&I literature and encouraging future research to consider the ethical implications of diversity in the workplace. (shrink)

This paper raises the questions: 'What do we expect from nursing ethics?' and 'Is the literature of nursing ethics any different from that of medical ethics?' It is suggested that rather than develop nursing ethics as a separate field writers in nursing ethics should take a lead in making the patient the central focus of health care ethics. The case is made for empirical work in health care ethics and it is suggested that a good way of setting about this (...) is to ask practising nurses about the real ethical problems they encounter. (shrink)

As multinational firms explore new and promising national markets two of the most crucial elements in the strategic decision regarding market-entry are the level of corruption and existing trade barriers. One form of corruption that is crucially important to firms is the theft of intellectual property. In particular, software piracy has become a hotly debated topic due to the deep costs and vast levels of piracy around the world. The purpose of this paper is to assess how laissez-faire trade policies (...) and corruption affect national software piracy rates. Using invisible hand theory, as well as literature from the fields of international strategy and ethics, formal research hypotheses are posited and tested. Results suggest that corruption mediates the relationship between economic freedom and software piracy. Implications for multinational managers and researchers are also addressed. (shrink)

Philosophy of history; the idea of the not-being and the history, by K. M. Jamil.--Philosophy of history, by Khwaja Ashkar Husain.--Philosophy of history, by A. H. Kamali.--Philosophy of history, by B. H. Siddiqi.--Philosophy of history: explanation in history, by Kazi A. Kadir.

Cross-species comparisons are benefited by compatible datasets; conclusions related to phylogenetic comparisons, questions on convergent and divergent evolution, or homologs versus analogs can only be made when the behaviors being measured are comparable. A direct comparison of the social function of physical contact across two disparate taxa is possible only if data collection and analyses methodologies are analogous. We identify and discuss the parameters, assumptions and measurement schemes applicable to multiple taxa and species that facilitate cross-species comparisons. To illustrate our (...) proposed guidelines for evaluating the role played by tactile contact in social behavior across disparate taxa, this paper presents data on mother-offspring relationships in the two species studied by the authors: chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) and dolphins (bottlenose and spotted, Tursiops truncatus and Stenella frontalis, respectively). Cross-species comparative studies allow for a more comprehensive assessment of the similarities and differences with respect to how animals traverse the relationships that form their social groups and societies. (shrink)