1 Evidence-based policy requires researchers to provide the answers to ecological questions that are of interest to policy makers. To find out what those questions are in the UK, representatives from 28 organizations involved in policy, together with scientists from 10 academic institutions, were asked to generate a list of questions from their organizations. 2 During a 2-day workshop the initial list of 1003 questions generated from consulting at least 654 policy makers and academics was used as a basis for (...) generating a short list of 100 questions of significant policy relevance. Short-listing was decided on the basis of the preferences of the representatives from the policy-led organizations. 3 The areas covered included most major issues of environmental concern in the UK, including agriculture, marine fisheries, climate change, ecosystem function and land management. 4 The most striking outcome was the preference for general questions rather than narrow ones. The reason is that policy is driven by broad issues rather than specific ones. In contrast, scientists are frequently best equipped to answer specific questions. This means that it may be necessary to extract the underpinning specific question before researchers can proceed. 5 Synthesis and applications. Greater communication between policy makers and scientists is required in order to ensure that applied ecologists are dealing with issues in a way that can feed into policy. It is particularly important that applied ecologists emphasize the generic value of their work wherever possible. (shrink)

A survey of women in two highly developed rural counties of China, Sichuan and Jiangsu Provinces, was carried out in late 1991, to gain information about demographic and economic change between 1980 and 1990. Three separate surveys were conducted: the first a questionnaire administered to married women aged 30–39, eliciting information about childbearing and contraception, as well as the social and economic background of the respondents; the second, focus group interviews emphasizing the motivation for childbearing. Official information about the selected (...) villages, townships and counties was also collected. (shrink)

Institutional review boards, tasked with facilitating ethical research, are often pulled in competing directions. In what we call the protection-inclusion dilemma, we acknowledge the tensions IRBs face in aiming to both protect potential research participants from harm and include under-represented populations in research. In this manuscript, we examine the history of protectionism that has dominated research ethics oversight in the United States, as well as two responses to such protectionism: inclusion initiatives and critiques of the term vulnerability. We look at (...) what we know about IRB decision-making in relation to protecting and including “vulnerable” groups in research and examine the lack of regulatory guidance related to this dilemma, which encourages protection over inclusion within IRB practice. Finally, we offer recommendations related to how IRBs might strike a better balance between inclusion and protection in research ethics oversight. (shrink)

Objectives: To discover the current state of opinion and practice among doctors in Victoria, Australia, regarding end-of-life decisions and the legalisation of voluntary euthanasia. Longitudinal comparison with similar 1987 and 1993 studies.Design and participants: Cross-sectional postal survey of doctors in Victoria.Results: 53% of doctors in Victoria support the legalisation of voluntary euthanasia. Of doctors who have experienced requests from patients to hasten death, 35% have administered drugs with the intention of hastening death. There is substantial disagreement among doctors concerning the (...) definition of euthanasia.Conclusions: Disagreement among doctors concerning the meaning of the term euthanasia may contribute to misunderstanding in the debate over voluntary euthanasia. Among doctors in Victoria, support for the legalisation of voluntary euthanasia appears to have weakened slightly over the past 17 years. Opinion on this issue is sharply polarised. (shrink)

Researchers from diverse disciplines, including organismal and cellular physiology, sports science, human nutrition, evolution and ecology, have sought to understand the causes and consequences of the surprising variation in metabolic rate found among and within individual animals of the same species. Research in this area has been hampered by differences in approach, terminology and methodology, and the context in which measurements are made. Recent advances provide important opportunities to identify and address the key questions in the field. By bringing together (...) researchers from different areas of biology and biomedicine, we describe and evaluate these developments and the insights they could yield, highlighting the need for more standardisation across disciplines. We conclude with a list of important questions that can now be addressed by developing a common conceptual and methodological toolkit for studies on metabolic variation in animals. (shrink)

We are grateful to everyone who took the time to offer such insightful comments with regard to the protection–inclusion dilemma in research oversight. Nearly all respondents agreed that this dilemm...

The use of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) in environmental decision-making and the contingent valuation (CV) technique as input into traditional CBA to elicit environmental values in monetary terms has stimulated an extensive debate. Critics have questioned the appropriateness of both the method and the technique. Some alternative suggestions for the elicitation of environmental values are based on a social process of deliberation. However, just like traditional economic theory, these alternative approaches may be questioned on their implicit value judgements regarding the legitimacy (...) of the social-political organisation of the process of value elicitation. Instead of making assumptions a priori, research efforts should be focused on the processes by which actual public attitudes and preferences towards the environment can best be elicited and fed into environmental or other public policy decision-making. In the study presented in this paper, support was found for both the individual WTP based approach and a participatory social deliberation approach to inform the environmental decision-making process, suggesting that a combination of both approaches is most appropriate. (shrink)

Introduction HLA Hart: A biographical sketch Jurisprudence is the theoretical study of a practical subject. Its object is to achieve a systematic and ...

ObjectiveTo prospectively study the cingulate cortex for the localization and role of the grasping action in humans during electrical stimulation of depth electrodes.MethodsAll the patients with intractable focal epilepsy and a depth electrode stereotactically placed in the cingulate cortex, as part of their pre-surgical epilepsy evaluation from 2015 to 2017, were included. Cortical stimulation was performed and examined for grasping actions. Post-implantation volumetric T1 MRIs were co-registered to determine the exact electrode position.ResultsFive patients exhibited contralateral grasping actions during electrical stimulation. (...) All patients had electrodes implanted in the ventral bank of the right cingulate sulcus adjacent to the vertical anterior commissure line. Stimulation of other electrodes in adjacent regions did not elicit grasping.ConclusionGrasping action elicited from a localized region in the mid-cingulate cortex directly supports the concept of the cingulate cortex being crucially involved in the grasping network. This opens an opportunity to explore this region with deep brain stimulation as a motor neuromodulation target for treatment in specific movement disorders or neurorehabilitation. (shrink)

British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Volume 19, Issue 5, Page 1012-1015, September 2011.

This collection by some of the leading scholars of Strauss's work is the first devoted to Strauss's thought regarding education. It seeks to address his conception of education as it applies to a range of his most important concepts, such as his views on the importance of revelation, his critique of modern democracy and the importance of modern classical education.

There is a common (although not universal) claim among historians and philosophers that Copernican theory predicted the phases of Venus. This claim ignores a prominant feature of the writings of, among others, Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler-the possibility that Venus might be self illuminating or translucent. I propose that such over-simplifications of the history of science emerges from "psychological predictivism", the tendency to infer from "E is good evidence for H" to "H predicts E." If this explanation is correct, then in (...) cases where evidence is less blatant the history of science (and philosophies of science that rely on it) has probably been seriously distorted in a predictivist direction. (shrink)