Implantable neurotechnology devices such as Brain Computer Interfaces and Deep Brain Stimulators are an increasing part of treating or exploring potential treatments for neurological and psychiatric disorders. While only a few devices are approved, many promising prospects for future devices are under investigation. The decision to participate in a clinical trial can be challenging, given a variety of risks to be taken into consideration. During the consent process, prospective participants might lack the language to consider those risks, feel unprepared, or (...) simply not know what questions to ask. One tool to help empower participants to play a more active role during the consent process is a Question Prompt List. QPLs are communication tools that can prompt participants and patients to articulate potential concerns. They offer a structured list of disease, treatment, or research intervention-specific questions that research participants can use as support for question asking. While QPLs have been studied as tools for improving the consent process during cancer treatment, in this paper, we suggest they would be helpful in neurotechnology research, and offer an example of a QPL as a template for an informed consent tool in neurotechnology device trials. (shrink)

La aplicación del principio de relatividad, una vez que se ha formulado la posibilidad de una instancia de referencia central, determina una libre opción (autónoma) por medio de la cual se prescinde de la posibilidad de existir en el relativismo, dado que si bien no se descubre una "realidad" , ..

Separation-based accounts of privacy define privacy as being left alone and unaccessed. Pyrrho et al. propose a more control-based account where privacy is about having the age...

Three points extend the authors' comprehensive and provocative argument: (1) The idea of “entering a community of minds” is suggested to replace theory of mind or social understanding; (2) learning words and concepts through a Wittgensteinian process often involves a period of “use without meaning”; (3) concepts based in social interaction are achieved through collaborative – neither individual nor social alone – construction.

The foundation of bioethics is the dignity of the human person. The concept of personhood developed from Christian Revelation. The marks of personhood include individuality, substantiality, rationality, incommunicability, and relatedness. Relevant issues for bioethics include the reality of personhood, the inseparability of human nature from human personhood, and the import of personhood for the inviolability of every human being. The recent bioethical instruction, Dignitas personae, reasserts that the embryo should be treated as a person and contains a latent philosophical argument (...) for defining the embryo as a person. The struggle to conceptualize personhood is the effort to value every human being as the image and likeness of God, who is ineffably Triune in his Personhood. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 9.4 (Winter 2009): 725–736. (shrink)

The marketing of health care services raises the prospect that an ethic of strangers will govern relations between providers and patients. A fiduciary model that emphasizes honesty and public accountability, as well as the patient's good and avoiding unnecessary services, can keep marketing consistent with the ethical tradition of medicine.

I borrow an idea from the fiction of C. S. Lewis that future outcomes may affect the value of past events, defend this idea via the concept of a 'temporal whole' and show its promise as a part of a theodicy and its resonance with Christian theism.

La escritura para la reflexión pedagógica es una competencia profesional docente que debe ser desarrollada durante la formación inicial para que, posteriormente, pueda ser aplicada en diversos contextos educativos, enriqueciendo así el proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje tanto del propio profesor como de los estudiantes con los que este interactúa. El ámbito de formación práctica es un espacio curricular donde esta competencia asume mayor preponderancia, pues el futuro profesor debe transferir diversos conocimientos teóricos hacia el ejercicio de aula. Bajo este (...) contexto, es posible reconocer la producción y circulación de ciertos géneros escritos específicos que dan cuenta de esta competencia. Esta investigación tiene como objetivo principal caracterizar, desde una perspectiva socioretórica, los géneros de reflexión pedagógica que escriben los estudiantes de dos carreras de pedagogía de una universidad chilena durante su formación práctica. Desde un enfoque metodológico cualitativo y con un diseño de Estudios de Casos Múltiples, se aplicaron dos instrumentos de recolección de datos: entrevistas semiestructuradas y focus group a profesores y estudiantes de la carrera de Educación Especial y Educación Parvularia. Entre los principales resultados destacan el reconocimiento de la escritura como un recurso que recoge la reflexión pedagógica de los profesores en formación; la utilización de determinados géneros pedagógicos en cada carrera y además la existencia de una progresión en el uso de estos de acuerdo a la complejidad y avance en el recorrido formativo del Plan de Estudios. (shrink)

Without doubt, good numbers that characterize sharply and completely the phenomena being studied, and precise explanation of these phenomena that can be expressed mathematically, are tremendous advantages for a field of science. But not all fields of science are lucky enough to be able to achieve these features. And when they are not, nonetheless to force the phenomena studied to be characterized largely with numbers and the causal mechanisms to be described mathematically can court seriously limiting and distorting the field (...) of study. Research by economists on long-run economic development is an example of a field of research where this has happened. But unfortunately the phenomena are widespread throughout science. (shrink)

In September 2010 at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, one of the nation's elite academic hospitals located in East Baltimore, Maryland, Paul Warren Pardus entered the facility to visit his mother, a patient. During a discussion with her doctor in a hospital hallway, Pardus became “overwhelmed” about the care and condition of his mother, pulled a handgun from his waistband, and shot the doctor in the chest. Pardus then locked himself and his mother in her room, shot and killed her, and (...) committed suicide.Dr. Gabe Kelen, a national expert on emergency preparedness and director of the Johns Hopkins emergency department, admitted several years later that this tragic event “really got us thinking in a very serious way.” Together with colleagues at the Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response, Kelen conducted research on the threat and impact of “active shooters” in health care settings. (shrink)

pt. I. The historical growth of religion, by W. M. Horton.--pt. II. Contemporary growth of religion, by H. N. Wieman.

This paper presents the theoretical bases and central proposes of anarchism, a social philosophy undergoing a resurgence in contemporary societies as the cornerstone of a possible radical utopia by demonstrating its renewed relevance to today’s socio-political circumstances while undermin..

Lukács and Twentieth Century Literature Tough he elaborated a robust system of Marxist aesthetics whose categories enabled him to formulate a brilliant analysis of the 19th century realist novel, Lukács proved unable to understand the literature of the 20th century. In fact he either ignored or regarded as “decadent” almost all the major representatives of the avant-garde, such as Proust and Kafka. is was not due to the intrinsic limitations of the aesthetic categories themselves. It was rather an effect of (...) his “optimistic” vision of the historical period following after the 1917 Revolution and the hypothesis of the development of socialism. is led him to regard as anti-realist the alleged “pessimism” of the avant-garde. Towards the end of his life, Lukács did however adopt a more critical position towards “real socialism”. He thus moved towards a more positive understanding of the literature of his time. (shrink)