The volume editors have organized the volume as a set of ten couplets and triplets.

Was there resistance in the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages to human dissection? Was autopsy thought to be a desecration of the body? The belief that the Church is opposed to dissection was due in part to the misinterpretation of a papal bull issued during the fourteenth century. Dissection of a corpse and autopsy were never in fact decreed by the Church. Rejection of these was based not on Church teaching but on a perceived violation of social honor because (...) of the unappealing public nature of the practices. To this day, the Catholic Church does not view dissection and autopsy as desecration of the body; the practices remain theologically compatible with Catholic doctrine. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 12.1 (Spring 2012): 37–42. (shrink)

The 20th anniversary of the Bhopal calamity fell on December 3, 2004. The world's worst industrial disaster in Bhopal, India, happened because of inadequate maintenance by Union Carbide and poor monitoring by the Indian authorities. Malfunctioning safety measures, inappropriate location of the plant, and lack of information about the identity and toxicity of the gas worsened the effects of the accident on people and livestock. The Bhopal disaster has raised questions about the implications of the transfer of potentially hazardous technology (...) to the developing countries. Even after 20 years, Bhopal has not recovered. In this article, we present what happened and why and what lessons can be learned at this terrible cost. (shrink)

On journalistic ethics of mass media in Sri Lanka and the role of Śrī Laṅkā Puvatpat Maṇḍalaya.

The possible differential effects of ABO blood group materno-paternal (fetal) incompatibility on completed reproductive performance were investigated on a sample of 100 couples (100 fathers and 100 mothers) from three villages in the Jind district of Haryana state, India. The average number of live births per mating couple was slightly higher for the incompatible matings (5·32) than the compatible ones (5·05). This advantage was offset by higher postnatal mortality in the former. Consequently, the average number of living children in the (...) compatible matings (4·64) was higher than in the incompatible ones (4·18). With reference to individual ABO matings, the index of relative fertility (Irf) was the highest in A×AB followed by B×A type of incompatible matings. No decrease in live births in O×A and O×B incompatible matings was observed compared with their reciprocal compatible ones, i.e. A×O and B×O matings, as has been hypothesized in previous studies. The total pregnancy wastage was substantially higher in ABO-incompatible matings (24·59%) than compatible matings (8·45%). About 71% of the postnatal deaths took place within one year of the birth in the case of incompatible matings compared with 50% in the case of compatible matings. The study supports the hypothesis that selection is operative at the ABO locus as revealed by the measures of selection intensity. The loss of fitness in the present sample was associated with differential mortality. There were no differences in the proportions of average number of male live births in the compatible (0·55) and incompatible matings (0·58). However, in the individual mating types, there was some evidence of higher or lower proportions of male live births. (shrink)

Plagiarism is a serious threat plaguing the research in publication of science globally. There is an increasing need to address the issue of plagiarism especially among young researchers in the developing part of the world. Plagiarism needs to be earnestly discouraged to ensure a plagiarism free research environment. We provide further suggestions to combat student plagiarism at Master’s level and the regulations/guidelines regarding plagiarism in India.

Transcript of papers presented in a seminar and meetings.

Editing human germline genes may act as boon in some genetic and other disorders. Recent editing of the genome of the human embryo with the CRISPR/Cas9 editing tool generated a debate amongst top scientists of the world for the ethical considerations regarding its effect on the future generations. It needs to be seen as to what transformation human gene editing brings to humankind in the times to come.

These essays, by widely respected scholars in fields ranging from social and political theory to historical sociology and cultural studies, illuminate the significance of the public/private distinction for an increasingly wide range of ...

The processing of time intervals in the sub- to supra-second range by the brain is critical for the interaction of primates with their surroundings in activities, such as foraging and hunting. For an accurate processing of time intervals by the brain, representation of physical time within neuronal circuits is necessary. I propose that time dimension of the physical surrounding is represented in the brain by different types of neuronal oscillators, generating spikes or spike bursts at regular intervals. The proposed oscillators (...) include the pacemaker neurons, tonic inputs, and synchronized excitation and inhibition of inter-connected neurons. Oscillators, which are built inside various circuits of brain, help to form modular clocks, processing time intervals or other temporal characteristics specific to functions of a circuit. Relative or absolute duration is represented within neuronal oscillators by “neural temporal unit,” defined as the interval between regularly occurring spikes or spike bursts. Oscillator output is processed to produce changes in activities of neurons, named frequency modulator neuron, wired within a separate module, represented by the rate of change in frequency, and frequency of activities, proposed to encode time intervals. Inbuilt oscillators are calibrated by (a) feedback processes, (b) input of time intervals resulting from rhythmic external sensory stimulation, and (c) synchronous effects of feedback processes and evoked sensory activity. A single active clock is proposed per circuit, which is calibrated by one or more mechanisms. Multiple calibration mechanisms, inbuilt oscillators, and the presence of modular connections prevent a complete loss of interval timing functions of the brain. (shrink)

Ali comparative studies imply simultaneously an identity and a difference, a situation that is replete with intellectual difficulties which give rise to interminable disputes regarding whether we are talking about the same thing or different things. One may cut the gordian knot by deciding either way, but the situation would reappear again as it is bound up with the comparative perspective itself and not with any particular example of it. How long shall we go on “naming”, for the process is (...) unending and ultimately “everything is what it is. and not another thing”. Or, if we do not like “names” as they hardly give us any knowledge and if we opt for “description” which gives us “facts”, then they too are as unending as the “names”, for, as the Jains taught us long ago, they are a function of the dṛṣti that we have or the point of view that we adopt. (shrink)

Journalology is the science of publication practices and the study of these activities. This communication details a centre for Journalology run by the Ottawa Hospital, Canada. The Centre has a valued role to play in the publication practices, ethics, and guides that researchers need in order to identify suitable journals for their research. Such centres are needed in every university so that the best publication practices are promoted and scientific integrity is maintained and enhanced.

China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), first announced by President Xi Jinping in 2013, has attracted widespread attention, with much discussion as to its meaning and intention. This article argues that one of the best ways to understand the BRI is to see it in the context of China’s two-thousand-year history as an empire. What kind of empire was the Chinese Empire? How did it see itself, and what was its characteristic mode of action? What was the meaning of the (...) “tribute system”? The celebrated voyages (1405–1433) of the Ming admiral Zheng He are taken as a typical example of Chinese imperial behaviour (rather than being seen, as is common, as an aberrant and exceptional episode). By examining this and other aspects of Chinese imperial history, it is hoped that some light might be shed on what the Chinese leadership as in mind with its Belt and Road Initiative, and what the rest of the world should expect from it. (shrink)

The issue of ‘mandatory publications’ has generated serious flak about its usefulness among the various stakeholders. A lot of debate centers around the question of ‘lack of will’ or ‘lack of skill’ as a reason for the diminishing research interests among the medical faculty in India. In our view, it is the lack of will to publish good quality research which is to be blamed rather than the lack of skill to do good quality research.

The western utopia has both classical and Judaeo-Christian roots. From the Greeks came the form of the ideal city, based on reason, from Jews and Christians the idea of deliverance through a messiah and the culmination of history in the millennium. The Greek conception placed utopia in an ideal space, the Christian conception in an ideal time. The modern utopia, dating from Thomas More's Utopia (1516), drew upon both these traditions but added something distinctive of its own. Following More, the (...) modern utopia has developed as a literary form whose closest relative is the novel. This, I argue, is its great strength. Unlike the abstract utopias of social and political philosophy, such as Marxism or anarchism, the `concrete utopia' of writers such as Edward Bellamy, William Morris and H. G. Wells paints `pleasing pictures of daily life' which both impel us to desire the good society and give us the tools by which to assess it. It is in this respect that utopia - and its mirror-image, the anti-utopia - developed as a distinct literary genre, separating it from other forms of picturing the ideal society in both east and west. (shrink)

God as a term denoting that which is ultimately real and absolutely valuational is simultaneously the necessary presupposition of all thought and action and also their ultimate goal. Yet, it is equally true that it is neither known nor even knowable in principle in the sense that any finite being or set of such beings may hope to know it in any determinate manner. Being generally conceived as beyond both space and time and transcending them in the sense that, even (...) when considered as immanent in the world, It can never be regarded as completely revealed at any particular point in space or time, it cannot but be unknown and unknowable in the deepest sense of the word. Yet, however paradoxical the idea of God may be, it is a symbol of that which man as a self-conscious reflective being, who both knows and acts, has to encounter at every turn. (shrink)

To talk of God is almost a presumption, for who can say with any certainty that it is or if it is, in what sense of “is” it is, and what is its nature. And, perhaps, of all those who talk of God, the philosopher is the least qualified, as by temperament and training he lives in a world where concepts and arguments and ratiocinative thought are more real than anything else. And God, whatever it may or may not be, (...) is not an idea or a concept or the conclusion of a well-reasoned chain of argumentation. Nor is it even a hypothesis to be tested or a necessary postulate without which our experience would make no sense and life cease to have a meaning. (shrink)

General and comparative studies of empire – like those of revolution – often suffer from insufficient attention to chronology. Time expresses itself both in the form that empires occur, often in succession to each other – the Roman, the Holy Roman, the Spanish, etc. – and, equally, in an awareness that this succession links empires in a genealogical sense, as part of a family of empires. This article explores the implications of taking time seriously, so that empires are not considered (...) simply as like ‘cases’ of a general phenomenon of empire but are treated as both ‘the same and different’. Concentrating on the European empires since the time of Rome, the article shows the extent to which empires were conscious of each other, seeking both to imitate admired features as well as to escape from those thought less desirable. It also shows the difference between ancient and modern empires, considered not so much as different types as in the differences caused by their location in different points in historical time. Comparative studies of empire, the article concludes, must pay attention to both continuity and change, both similarity and difference. (shrink)

Ethical debates over the use of mental health knowledge and practice at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility have mostly revolved around military clinicians sharing detainee medical information with interrogators, falsifying death certificates in interrogations, and disagreements over whether the Central Intelligence Agency’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” violated bioethical principles to do no harm. However, debates over the use of magnetic resonance imaging in the mental health evaluations of detainees have received little attention. This paper provides the first known analysis of such (...) debates over MRI use in the case of Abd al-Rahim al- Nashiri. Through a close reading of open-source legal documents such as defense motions, prosecution motions, judge rulings, and al-Nashiri’s mental health evaluation, debates over MRI use become interpretive contests over the very meanings of mental illness and the extent to which MRI results can verify whether he was tortured in CIA custody. Such work can revitalize interest in the neuroethics of national security. (shrink)

Background Most studies on medical reasoning focus on contemporary allopathic practitioners. Here, the significance of diagnostic sense in Nizāmī ‘Arūzī’s Four Discourses (Chahār Maqāle), an influential text that circulated widely throughout the Islamic world, is explored. Methods After a brief introduction, key passages are translated on how doctors should cultivate analytical skills. Results Nizāmī ‘Arūzī cites three sources of diagnostic authority: (1) education in the texts of medical experts, (2) formal logic and (3) belief in the power of God. Conclusions (...) ‘Arūzī’s methods, though rooted in a religious faith that may seem foreign to contemporary doctors and educators, has much to recommend regarding its clarity of approach, its high ethical standards and expectations of doctors, and its commitment to best practices for the patient. Crosscultural studies of medical education and professionalism can offer valuable insights by demonstrating how doctors across history and geography have grappled with the common concerns of diagnosis and treatment. (shrink)

Scholars have mostly analyzed information from mental health practitioners, attorneys, and institutions to critique mental health practices in the War on Terror. These sources offer limited insights into the suffering of detainees. Detainee accounts provide novel information based on their experiences at Guantánamo. Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s Guantánamo Diary is the only text from a current detainee that provides a first-person account of his interrogations and interactions with health professionals. Despite being advertised as a diary, however, it has undergone redaction from (...) American government officials. This article examines Slahi’s account of his interrogations and representations of mental health at Guantánamo and considers its role within the narrative function of the nation. At stake is the right of detainees to narrate, scholars to critique medical practices in the War on Terror, and the nation’s attempts to control its narration. (shrink)