Discussions of over 200 selected ethical problems that face the practicing physician on a daily basis. Alphabetical arrangement of problems, ranging from abortion to Zen. Entry includes lengthy discussion and references.

Journal of Applied Philosophy, EarlyView.

The basic idea of his Origin of Species is that in nature there is a process similar to what goes on in the breeding of domestic plants and animals. If a breeder wants to produce a variety with certain characteristics, he/she keeps an eye out for individuals that have some approximation to those characteristics and breeds from them and not from individuals that do not have something like the desired characteristics. The other individuals may be destroyed, or they may just (...) be segregated; at any rate they are not allowed to breed with the selected stock. The breeder follows this policy also with the second generation of the offspring of the selected individuals of the first generation; those that after all do not have the desired characteristics are rejected, those that do are selected to produce the third generation, and so on. The whole process presupposes some degree of variability within the plant or animal being bred from. There have to be spontaneously produced individuals with something like the desired characteristics for the breeder to select. What can be accomplished by selection breeding depends of the range of variation that occurs spontaneously. (Hence the topic of Darwin's book of 1868, Variation of Plants and Animals under Domestication.) See in the Readings book the picture of the different breeds of pigeons from the Illustrated London News, 1864; Darwin was a pigeon fancier. (shrink)

"The search for transcendence is an absorbing and ongoing enterprise. Transcendence is the most discussed, the most compelling, and the most engaging of the subjects with which contemporary theologians deal ... The impulse to move from the ordinary dimensions of life to the extraordinary is not invented by the theologians but is one which appears to spring up from the deepest levels of consciousness itself." [Introduction].

As we become more and more enhanced with cyborg technology, significant issues of law and policy are raised. For example, as cyborg devices implanted within the body create a class of people with enhanced motor and computational abilities, how should the law and policy respond when the abilities of such people surpass those of the general population? And what basic human and legal rights should be afforded to people equipped with cyborg technology as they become more machine and less biology? (...) As other issues of importance, if a neuroprosthetic device is accessed by a third party and done to edit one’s memory or to plant a new memory in one’s mind, or even to place an ad for a commercial product in one’s consciousness, should there be a law of cognitive liberty or of “neuro-advertising” that applies? This paper discusses laws and statutes enacted across several jurisdictions which apply to cyborg technologies with a particular emphasis on legal doctrine which relates to neuroprosthetic devices. (shrink)

: The Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine developed by the Council of Europe, now undergoing ratification, is the first international treaty focused on bioethics. This article describes the background of the Convention's development and its general provisions and provides a comparison of its requirements with those of federal regulations governing research with human subjects. Although most provisions are comparable, there are significant differences in scope and applicability, for example, in the areas of compensation for injury, research participation by persons (...) with limited capacity to consent, assisted reproduction, organ transplantation, and research in emergency situations. The Convention represents a milestone in international bioethics and protection of human rights that will probably be referred to with increasing frequency. (shrink)

Quantificational determiners are often said to be devices for expressing relations. For example, the meaning of _every_ is standardly described as the inclusion relation, with a sentence like _every frog is green_ meaning roughly that the green things include the frogs. Here, we consider an older, non-relational alternative: determiners are tools for creating restricted quantifiers. On this view, determiners specify how many elements of a restricted domain (e.g., the frogs) satisfy a given condition (e.g., being green). One important difference concerns (...) how the determiner treats its two grammatical arguments. On the relational view, the arguments are on a logical par as independent terms that specify the two relata. But on the restricted view, the arguments play distinct logical roles: specifying the limited domain versus supplying an additional condition on domain entities. We present psycholinguistic evidence suggesting that the restricted view better describes what speakers know when they know the meaning of a determiner. In particular, we find that when asked to evaluate sentences of the form _every F is G_, participants mentally group the Fs but not the Gs. Moreover, participants forego representing the group defined by the intersection of F and G. This tells against the idea that speakers understand _every F is G_ as implying that the Fs bear relation (e.g., inclusion) to a second group. (shrink)

The comprehension of anaphoric relations may be guided not only by discourse, but also syntactic information. In the literature on online processing, however, the focus has been on audible pronouns and descriptions whose reference is resolved mainly on the former. This paper examines one relation that both lacks overt exponence, and relies almost exclusively on syntax for its resolution: adjunct control, or the dependency between the null subject of a non-finite adjunct and its antecedent in sentences such as Mickey talked (...) to Minnie before ___ eating. Using visual world eyetracking, we compare the time course of interpreting this null subject and overt pronouns (Mickey talked to Minnie before he ate). We show that when control structures are highly frequent, listeners are just as quick to resolve reference in either case. When control structures are less frequent, reference resolution based on structural information still occurs upon hearing the non-finite verb, but more slowly, especially when unaided by structural and referential predictions. This may be due to increased difficulty in recognizing that a referential dependency is necessary. These results indicate that in at least some contexts, referential expressions whose resolution depends on very different sources of information can be resolved approximately equally rapidly, and that the speed of interpretation is largely independent of whether or not the dependency is cued by an overt referring expression. (shrink)

Sentences such as “The ship was sunk to collect the insurance” exhibit an unusual form of anaphora, implicit control, where neither anaphor nor antecedent is audible. The non-finite reason clause has an understood subject, PRO, that is anaphoric; here it may be understood as naming the agent of the event of the host clause. Yet since the host is a short passive, this agent is realized by no audible dependent. The putative antecedent to PRO is therefore implicit, which it normally (...) cannot be. What sorts of representations subserve the comprehension of this dependency? Here we present four self-paced reading time studies directed at this question. Previous work showed no processing cost for implicit vs. explicit control, and took this to support the view that PRO is linked syntactically to a silent argument in the passive. We challenge this conclusion by reporting that we also find no processing cost for remote implicit control, as in: “The ship was sunk. The reason was to collect the insurance.” Here the dependency crosses two independent sentences, and so cannot, we argue, be mediated by syntax. Our Experiments 1–4 examined the processing of both implicit (short passive) and explicit (active or long passive) control in both local and remote configurations. Experiments 3 and 4 added either “3 days ago” or “just in order” to the local conditions, to control for the distance between the passive and infinitival verbs, and for the predictability of the reason clause, respectively. We replicate the finding that implicit control does not impose an additional processing cost. But critically we show that remote control does not impose a processing cost either. Reading times at the reason clause were never slower when control was remote. In fact they were always faster. Thus, efficient processing of local implicit control cannot show that implicit control is mediated by syntax; nor, in turn, that there is a silent but grammatically active argument in passives. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger wrote one and only one preface for a scholarly work on his thinking, and it was for William J. Richardson’s study Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought, first published in 1963. Ever since, both Heidegger’s Preface and Richardson’s groundbreaking book have played an important role in Heidegger scholarship. Much has been discussed about these texts over the decades, but what has not been available to students and scholars up to this point is Richardson’s original comments and questions to (...) Heidegger that led to the famous Preface. These are published here for the first time both in the German original and in our English translation. In our commentary we 1) discuss how Heidegger’s Preface came about, 2) explain the source and status of the materials published here, and 3) pair selected passages from Richardson’s text with Heidegger’s reply in his Preface to highlight the consonance of their thinking. (shrink)

The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) has been the subject of intense interest as a locus of cognitive control. Several computational models have been proposed to account for a range of effects, including error detection, conflict monitoring, error likelihood prediction, and numerous other effects observed with single-unit neurophysiology, fMRI, and lesion studies. Here, we review the state of computational models of cognitive control and offer a new theoretical synthesis of the mPFC as signaling response–outcome predictions. This new synthesis has two interacting (...) components. The first component learns to predict the various possible outcomes of a planned action, and the second component detects discrepancies between the actual and intended responses; the detected discrepancies in turn update the outcome predictions. This single construct is consistent with a wide array of performance monitoring effects in mPFC and suggests a unifying account of the cognitive role of medial PFC in performance monitoring. (shrink)

Achieving space domain awareness requires the identification, characterization, and tracking of space objects. Storing and leveraging associated space object data for purposes such as hostile threat assessment, object identification, and collision prediction and avoidance present further challenges. Space objects are characterized according to a variety of parameters including their identifiers, design specifications, components, subsystems, capabilities, vulnerabilities, origins, missions, orbital elements, patterns of life, processes, operational statuses, and associated persons, organizations, or nations. The Space Object Ontology provides a consensus-based realist framework (...) for formulating such characterizations in a computable fashion. Space object data are aligned with classes and relations in the Space Object Ontology and stored in a dynamically updated Resource Description Framework triple store, which can be queried to support space domain awareness and the needs of spacecraft operators. This paper presents the core of the Space Object Ontology, discusses its advantages over other approaches to space object classification, and demonstrates its ability to combine diverse sets of data from multiple sources within an expandable framework. Finally, we show how the ontology provides benefits for enhancing and maintaining longterm space domain awareness. (shrink)

In several places we have argued that ‘fitness’ is a primitive term with respect to the theory of evolution properly understood. These arguments have relied heavily on the axiomatization of the theory provided by one of us. In contrast, both John Beatty and Robert Brandon have separately argued for a “propensity“ interpretation of “fitness” ; and in Brandon and Beatty they attack our view that “fitness“ is a primitive term in evolutionary theory, concluding that a definition by way of propensities (...) is possible and preferable. Here we reply to their criticisms, and argue that, at most, the view that fitness is a statistical propensity is a terminological variant on our thesis that it is a primitive in evolutionary theory. (shrink)

In the past two decades, reinforcement learning has become a popular framework for understanding brain function. A key component of RL models, prediction error, has been associated with neural signals throughout the brain, including subcortical nuclei, primary sensory cortices, and prefrontal cortex. Depending on the location in which activity is observed, the functional interpretation of prediction error may change: Prediction errors may reflect a discrepancy in the anticipated and actual value of reward, a signal indicating the salience or novelty of (...) a stimulus, and many other interpretations. Anterior cingulate cortex has long been recognized as a region involved in processing behavioral error, and recent computational models of the region have expanded this interpretation to include a more general role for the region in predicting likely events, broadly construed, and signaling deviations between expected and observed events. Ongoing modeling work investigating the interaction between ACC and additional regions involved in cognitive control suggests an even broader role for cingulate in computing a hierarchically structured surprise signal critical for learning models of the environment. The result is a predictive coding model of the frontal lobes, suggesting that predictive coding may be a unifying computational principle across the neocortex. (shrink)

The clinical clerkships in medical school are the first formal opportunity for trainees to apply bioethics concepts to clinical encounters. These clerkships are also typically trainees’ first sustained exposure to the “reality” of working in clinical teams and the full force of the challenges and ethical tensions of clinical care. We have developed a specialized, embedded ethics curriculum for Vanderbilt University medical students during their second year to address the unique experience of trainees’ first exposure to clinical care. Our embedded (...) curriculum is centered around core “ethics competencies” specific to the clerkship: for Medicine, advanced planning and end-of-life discussions; for Surgery, informed consent; for Pediatrics, the patient-family-provider triad; for Obstetrics and Gynecology, women’s autonomy, unborn child’s interests, and partner’s rights; and for Neurology/Psychiatry, decision-making capacity. In this paper, we present the rationale for these competencies, how we integrated them into the clerkships, and how we assessed these competencies. We also review the additional ethical issues that have been identified by rotating students in each clerkship and discuss our strategies for continued evolution of our ethics curriculum. (shrink)

Monoclonal antibodies are essential biomedical research and clinical reagents that are produced by companies and research laboratories. The NIAID ImmPort (Immunology Database and Analysis Portal) resource provides a long-term, sustainable data warehouse for immunological data generated by NIAID, DAIT and DMID funded investigators for data archiving and re-use. A variety of immunological data is generated using techniques that rely upon monoclonal antibody reagents, including flow cytometry, immunofluorescence, and ELISA. In order to facilitate querying, integration, and reuse of data, standardized terminology (...) for describing monoclonal antibody reagents and their targets needs to be used for annotating data submitted to ImmPort. (shrink)

_Between Past Orthodoxies and the Future of Globalization_ provides essays in English by leading thinkers in Russia in philosophy, political theory, and related fields. Their essays articulate Russian perspectives on the key global issues being faced internationally and in Russia.

We have begun work on two separate but related ontologies for the study of neurological diseases. The first, the Neurological Disease Ontology (ND), is intended to provide a set of controlled, logically connected classes to describe the range of neurological diseases and their associated signs and symptoms, assessments, diagnoses, and interventions that are encountered in the course of clinical practice. ND is built as an extension of the Ontology for General Medical Sciences — a high-level candidate OBO Foundry ontology that (...) provides a set of general classes that can be used to describe general aspects of medical science. ND is being built with classes utilizing both textual and axiomatized definitions that describe and formalize the relations between instances of other classes within the ontology itself as well as to external ontologies such as the Gene Ontology, Cell Ontology, Protein Ontology, and Chemical Entities of Biological Interest. In addition, references to similar or associated terms in external ontologies, vocabularies and terminologies are included when possible. Initial work on ND is focused on the areas of Alzheimer’s and other diseases associated with dementia, multiple sclerosis, and stroke and cerebrovascular disease. Extensions to additional groups of neurological diseases are planned. The second ontology, the Neuro-Psychological Testing Ontology (NPT), is intended to provide a set of classes for the annotation of neuropsychological testing data. The intention of this ontology is to allow for the integration of results from a variety of neuropsychological tests that assay similar measures of cognitive functioning. Neuro-psychological testing is an important component in developing the clinical picture used in the diagnosis of patients with a range of neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis, and following stroke or traumatic brain injury. NPT is being developed as an extension to the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations. (shrink)

Training of resident physicians is essential for the care of future patients. While surgical trainee involvement is necessary, its disclosure to patients can often be omitted or underplayed by surgeons. The informed consent process and the underlying ethical principles make evident that patients should be informed of trainee involvement. In this review we explore the importance of disclosure, current themes in practice, and the optimal discussion for which we should strive.

The 10th International Conference on Biomedical Ontology (ICBO 2019), was held at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences of the University at Buffalo, in Buffalo, NY, USA. It was the 10-year anniversary of the ICBO series, and the return of the conference to Buffalo after the first two ICBO conferences were held in Buffalo in 2009 and 2011. ICBO 2019 was well attended, with 115 registered attendees and additional walk-ins from the local academic community. The program included excellent (...) keynote talks by Barry Smith, “International Standard Ontology,” and Bjoern Peters, “Putting principles into practice: OBO ontologies and applications in immunology,” as well as 23 oral presentations, 26 posters, and one software presentation. There were 53 papers and abstracts submitted for peer-review to ICBO 2019. Each submission was reviewed by three members chosen from the Program Committee. Of these submissions, 43 were accepted for this volume: 19 full papers, 23 poster abstracts, and 1 software demonstration extended abstract. We thank our program committee for their thoughtful reviews. There were also three workshops and four tutorials (listed below) held in conjunction with the main ICBO 2019 meeting. (shrink)

An increasing number of research teams are investigating the efficacy of brain-computer interface (BCI)-mediated interventions for promoting motor recovery following stroke. A growing body of evidence suggests that of the various BCI designs, most effective are those that deliver functional electrical stimulation (FES) of upper extremity (UE) muscles contingent on movement intent. More specifically, BCI-FES interventions utilize algorithms that isolate motor signals—user-generated intent-to-move neural activity recorded from cerebral cortical motor areas—to drive electrical stimulation of individual muscles or muscle synergies. BCI-FES (...) interventions aim to recover sensorimotor function of an impaired extremity by facilitating and/or inducing long-term motor learning-related neuroplastic changes in appropriate control circuitry. We developed a non-invasive, electroencephalogram (EEG)-based BCI-FES system that delivers closed-loop neural activity-triggered electrical stimulation of targeted distal muscles while providing the user with multimodal sensory feedback. This BCI-FES system consists of three components: (1) EEG acquisition and signal processing to extract real-time volitional and task-dependent neural command signals from cerebral cortical motor areas, (2) FES of muscles of the impaired hand contingent on the motor cortical neural command signals, and (3) multimodal sensory feedback associated with performance of the behavioral task, including visual information, linked activation of somatosensory afferents through intact sensorimotor circuits, and electro-tactile stimulation of the tongue. In this report, we describe device parameters and intervention protocols of our BCI-FES system which, combined with standard physical rehabilitation approaches, has proven efficacious in treating UE motor impairment in stroke survivors, regardless of level of impairment and chronicity. (shrink)

In this empirical paper, Jay, Stone, Meksin, Merck, Gordon and Hirst examine whether jury deliberations, in which individuals collaboratively recall and discuss evidence of a trial, shape the jurors’ memories. In doing so, Jay and colleagues provide a highly ecologically valid baseline for future investigation into why, how and when selective recall either facilitates remembering or leads to forgetting during jury deliberations. In particular, Jay et al. explore the specific social and cognitive mechanisms that might lead to either memory facilitation (...) (RIFA – Retrieval Induced Facilitation) and forgetting (RIF ‐ Retrieval Induced Forgetting) during jury deliberation. (shrink)

Societal problems are not solved by individualistic interventions, but nor are systemic approaches optimal given their neglect of the social psychology underpinning group dynamics. This impasse can be addressed through a group-level analysis (a “g-frame”) that social identity theorizing affords. Using a g-frame can make policy interventions more adaptive, inclusive, and engaging.

_Suggests that a full acceptance of the finitude of existence can lead to the affirmation of God._.