Background: Legislation on physician-assisted suicide is being considered in a number of states since the passage of the Oregon Death With Dignity Act in 1994. Opinion assessment surveys have historically assessed particular subsets of physicians.Objective: To determine variables predictive of physicians’ opinions on PAS in a rural state, Vermont, USA.Design: Cross-sectional mailing survey.Participants: 1052 physicians licensed by the state of Vermont.Results: Of the respondents, 38.2% believed PAS should be legalised, 16.0% believed it should be prohibited and 26.0% believed it should (...) not be legislated. 15.7% were undecided. Males were more likely than females to favour legalisation . Physicians who did not care for patients through the end of life were significantly more likely to favour legalisation of PAS than physicians who do care for patients with terminal illness . 30% of the respondents had experienced a request for assistance with suicide.Conclusions: Vermont physicians’ opinions on the legalisation of PAS is sharply polarised. Patient autonomy was a factor strongly associated with opinions in favour of legalisation, whereas the sanctity of the doctor–patient relationship was strongly associated with opinions in favour of not legislating PAS. Those in favour of making PAS illegal overwhelmingly cited moral and ethical beliefs as factors in their opinion. Although opinions on legalisation appear to be based on firmly held beliefs, approximately half of Vermont physicians who responded to the survey agree that there is a need for more education in palliative care and pain management. (shrink)

Industrial wind turbines have been operating in many parts of the globe. Anecdotal reports of perceived adverse health effects relating to industrial wind turbines have been published in the media and on the Internet. Based on these reports, indications were that some residents perceived they were experiencing adverse health effects. The purpose of the WindVOiCe health survey was to provide vigilance monitoring for those wishing to report their perceived adverse health effects. This article discusses the results of a self reporting (...) health survey regarding perceived adverse health effects associated with industrial wind turbines. (shrink)

Zettel is a collection of fragments which Wittgenstein cut from various of his typescripts and preserved for future use. More than half of the fragments were written in the years 1946-1948, after the completion of Part I and before the composition of Part II of the Philosophical Investigations. This collection may therefore be regarded as a companion volume to the Investigations, adding to both the scope and the Unity of Wittgenstein′s chef d′oeuvre. The fragments were kept in a box and (...) were not strictly ordered. Many have marks showing changes and improvements made after they were cut from the typescripts; some have remarks added in handwriting. Editing the collection for publication was thus a task of considerable difficulty. Since Zettel was first published, further research has been carried out on the fragments and minute comparisons have been made with their typescript and manuscript sources, revealing certain inaccuracies and misinterpretations in the first editing of the work. The second edition corrects these shortcomings and includes new explanatory footnotes; a detailed index, compiled by Stephen Amdur, has also been added. (shrink)

Chapter 1 Introduction: Three moral questions In this chapter ... You will be introduced to a number of basic ethical concepts and distinctions; ...

A 10 kHz pulsed X-ray generator utilising a hot-cathode triode in conjunction with a new type of grid control device for controlling X-ray duration is described. The energy-storage condenser was charged up to 70 kV by a power supply, and the electric charges in the condenser were discharged to the X-ray tube repetitively by the grid control device. The maximum values of the grid voltage, the tube voltage, and the tube current were −1.5 kV, 70 kV, and 0.4 A, respectively. (...) The duration of the flash X-ray pulse was primarily determined by the time constant of the grid control device and the cut-off voltage of thermoelectrons. The X-ray duration was controlled within a region of less than 1 ms; the X-ray intensity with a pulse width of 0.27 ms, a charged voltage of 70 kV, and a peak tube current of 0.4 A was 0.92 μC kg −1 at 0.5 m per pulse. The maximum repetition rate was about 10 kHz, and the size of the focal spot was about 3.5×3.5 mm. (shrink)

Since the 1930s, scientists studying the neurological disease scrapie had assumed that the infectious agent was a virus. By the mid 1960s, however, several unconventional properties had arisen that were difficult to reconcile with the standard viral model. Evidence for nucleic acid within the pathogen was lacking, and some researchers considered the possibility that the infectious agent consisted solely of protein. In 1982, Stanley Prusiner coined the term `prion' to emphasize the agent's proteinaceous nature. This infectious protein hypothesis was denounced (...) by many scientists as `heretical'.This essay asks why the concept of an infectious protein was considered controversial. Some biologists justified their evaluation of this hypothesis on the grounds that an infectious protein contradicted the `central dogma of molecular biology'. Others referred to vague theoretical constraints such as molecular biology's `theoretical structure' or `framework'. Examination of the objections raised by researchers reveals exactly what generalizations were being challenged by a protein model of infection.This two-part survey of scrapie and prion research reaches several conclusions: (1) A theoretical framework is present in molecular biology, exerting its influence in hypothesis formation and evaluation; (2) This framework consists of several related, yet separable, generalizations or `elements', including Francis Crick's Central Dogma and Sequence Hypothesis, plus notions concerning infection, replication, protein synthesis, and protein folding; (3) The term `central dogma' has stretched beyond Crick's original 1958 definition to encompass at least two other `framework elements': replication and protein synthesis; and (4) From the study of scrapie and related diseases, biological information has been delineated into at least two classes: sequential and what I call `conformational'.In Part I of this essay, a brief review of the central dogma, as outlined by both Francis Crick and James Watson, will be given. The developments in scrapie research from 1965 to 1972 will then be traced. This section will summarize many of the puzzling, non-viral-like properties of the scrapie agent. Alternative hypotheses to the viral explanation will also be presented, including early versions of a protein-only hypothesis. Part II of this essay will follow the developments in scrapie and prion research from the mid 1970s through 1991. The growing prominence of a protein-only model of infection will be balanced by continued objections from many researchers to a pathogen devoid of nucleic acid. These objections will help illuminate those generalizations in molecular biology that were indeed challenged by a protein-only model of infection. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Never Mind the Gap: Neurophenomenology, Radical Enactivism, and the Hard Problem of Consciousness” by Michael D. Kirchhoff & Daniel D. Hutto. Upshot: We point out that the significance of the neurophenomenological approach to the “hard problem” of consciousness is underrated and misunderstood by the authors of the target article. In its original version, neurophenomenology implies nothing less than a change in our own being to dispel the mere sense that there is a problem to (...) be theoretically solved or dissolved. Neurophenomenology thus turns out to be much more radical than the enactivist kind of dissolution promoted by the authors. (shrink)