Confusions about the place of race in medicine result in part from a failure to recognize the plurality of race concepts. Recognition that the ordinary concept of race is not identical to the racialist concept of race makes it possible to ask whether there might be a legitimate place for the deployment of concepts of race in medical contexts. Two technical race concepts are considered. The concept of social race is the concept of a social group that is taken to (...) be a racialist race. It is apt for use in examining and addressing the medical effects of discrimination. The populationist concept of race represents race as a kind of biological population. It makes it possible to frame the question whether biological race is a factor in disease susceptibility and drug responsiveness. It is apt for use in determining whether biological race is a medically significant category. (shrink)

The rule that one must obtain informed consent is well established in medical ethics and an intrinsic part of clinical practice and of research in biomedicine. However, there is a tendency that the rule today is being applied too rigidly and with too little sensitivity to the values that are at stake in connection with different kinds of research protocols. It is here argued that the quality of consent needs to be balanced against variables such as degree of confidentiality and (...) importance of values at stake, in order to be ethically acceptable. Appropriate information and consent procedures should be adjusted accordingly. Three levels are suggested, ranging from extensively informed consent with both written and oral information, through informed refusal with only a limited amount of information given to, at the other end of the scale, just making relevant information available. (shrink)

Background The ideal basis of age estimation is considered to be a combination of clinical, skeletal and dental examinations. It is not easy to determine how forensic physicians take account of evidence-based data obtained from medical journals in their medical decision-making. The question of what is an ethically acceptable probability that adolescents are incorrectly considered to be over 18 has not been answered. Methods In a retrospective study over 1 year (2007), 498 files (for 141 female subjects and 357 male (...) subjects) regarding age assessment requested by the public prosecutor's office for purposes of criminal or asylum proceedings were reviewed. Chronological age was estimated from a combination of physical examination, radiographic examination of the left hand and determination of dental status. Results Estimates of chronological age in 498 subjects claiming to be 9–14 years old were incompatible with the alleged age in 356 (71%) when made by the forensic physician but in only 17 (3%) when based on data from published studies on age estimation in adolescents. Conclusions The present study suggests that in most cases the forensic physician ignores the adolescent's word. Medical mission and ethics imply a need to listen to the claims of persons in custody, whatever the risk of false claims. This situation should prompt forensic physicians to keep up with published data on estimating the age of adolescents. (shrink)

The actuality is presentd the conditions for solving informational society’s problems that require use of informational method or approach, because the information society is the theory and practice of solving the informatization problems of society aimed at solving the problems of influence of informatization on society’s development. The main goal of the article is the conceptualization of informational society’s ideas, that create a new philosophy of society which acts as an ideology of modern thinking. The objectives of the study are (...) to identify problems that impede development of the information society as integrity in context of the present global processes and find ways to optimize the information society from individual to state-building levels. Methodology is in theusing the informational method that allows to investigate influence of informatization processes on human and society development, and analyze problems of information society - informatization, information culture, virtualization, social and communication structures as basis of information society, peculiarities of processes of society’s intellectualization and Internet communications. The result of the study is an information society as a qualitatively new state of civilization is a progressive development of civilization, in accordance to its scientific and technical achievements demonstrates the high threshold, to which all advanced advanced states seek. After all, information culture, information ideology and information philosophy can achieve such successes, to reach the threshold of development in conditions of information revolution that absorbed all developed countries of the world. As a result of the analysis, scientific and methodological approaches to solution of problems of the information society's technologization have been formed in order to overcome the biggest obstacles connected with the informatization of society and the lack of information. Nowadays, the Internet forms the informatiological basis of society through information of the Internet network and owing to the Internet. The scientific novelty of the research is in opening the laws of information society, which allow a modern man to survive within the framework of formation the modern thinking and conceptually rebuild the world in which a person lived before. Conclusion - justification of methodological principles of solving problems of information societies, based on intellectualization of labor citizens, development of human capacity, obtaining additional value through intellectualization. (shrink)

Cogito, as the first principle of Descartes’ metaphysical system, initiated the modern philosophy of consciousness, becoming both the source and subject of modern Western philosophical discourse. The philosophies of Maine de Biran, Kant, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and others developed by answering the following questions? Is consciousness substantial or not? Does consciousness require the guarantee of a transcendental subject? Is Cogito epistemological or ontological? Am I a being-for-myself or a being-for-others? Outlining the developmental history of the idea of Cogito from (...) Descartes to Sartre is important for totally comprehending the evolution and development of Western philosophy. (shrink)

Des Geistes Gleichmass. Festschrift zum 75. Geburtstag des Ehrwürdigen Nyanaponika Mahathera. Verlag Christiani, Konstanz, 1976. 203 pp. Portrait.

Актуальність дослідження інформаційно-комунікацйних технологій як чинника розвитку управлінської культури обумовлена становленням інформаційного суспільства, цифрових технологій та цифрової освіти. Мета дослідження – концептуалізація інформаційно-комунікаційних технологій як чинник розвитку управлінської культури та їх вплив на розвиток культури керівника. Аналіз останніх досліджень і публікацій, з яких започатковано розв’язання даної проблеми і на які спирається авторка. Для аналізу ми виділяємо публікації В.Андрущенка, В. Беха, Ю. Бех, В. Воронкової, О. Кивлюк, В. Нікітенко, М. Максименюк, Р. Олексенка, О. Пунченка, О. Сосніна, що дозволяють нам проникнути в (...) сутність інформаційно-комунікаційних технологій як чинника розвитку управлінської культури та підготовки управлінської еліти. Серед зарубіжних джерел виокремлено роботи М.Кастельса, Й. Масуди, О.Тоффлера, що покладено в основу аналізу інформаційного суспільства та виявлення його проблем.. Формування цілей статті: виявити сучасний стан суспільно-економічного розвитку, що характеризується небаченими темпами розбудови нового інформаційно-комунікаційного облаштування суспільства і розбудови його як інформаційного забезпечення; дослідити, що інформація і знання стали величезним багатством, нематеріальним активом розвитку націй і держав; сформувати принципи створення системи підготовки кадрового потенціалу у контексті розвитку інформаційного суспільства, до розвитку якого мають бути залучені інформаційно-комп’ютерні технології. Методологія дослідження - виокремлено загальнонаукові методи та методи конструктивної методології, що застосовуються до аналізу управлінських наук. В економічній, соціологічній, соціально-філософській літературі методи конструктивної методології є малодослідженими. Наукова новизна дослідження – у застосуванні конструктивної методології, яка свідчить про те, що управлінські науки – це науки праксеологічної спрямованості, що направлені на формування управлінської культури інформаційного суспільства. Результати дослідження. Розкрито сутність інформаційної компетентності, яку розуміють як здатність знаходити інформацію за допомогою сучасних технічних засобів, а також зберігати, переробляти і застосовувати її; проаналізовано проблеми використання інформаційного ресурсу і творчих можливостей громадян як інвестиційного ресурсу розвитку країни; розроблено практичні рекомендації удосконалення напрямів розвитку інформаційно-комунікаційних технологій як головного мегатренду інформаційного суспільства. Висновок – розроблено практичні рекомендації, що сприяють удосконаленню напрямів інформаційно-комунікаційних технологій як головного мегатренду підготовки управлінської еліти інформаційного суспільства. (shrink)

The following text is taken from the publisher's website: "Romanticism is, and always has been, one of the most hotly contested terms in literary and cultural history. Many of the writers now described as Romantic refused to be defined by the word: 'it would be such bad taste', said Byron in 1820. Lovejoy spoke of a plurality of ‘romanticisms’, born of distinct thought complexes, whilst René Wellek argued that literatures labelled Romantic indicated common conceptions. Comparably, in the post-World War II (...) period, political commentators have seen Romanticism as either profoundly radical or deeply reactionary. This significant collection gathers key critical discussions that explore the complex and many-sided nature of the 'Romantic'. A new introduction by the editors, a full index and chronological table of contents guide the reader through the wealth of material dedicated to a term that is both extremely unstable and remarkably persistent.". (shrink)

Most models of corporate social responsibility revolve around the controversy as to whether business is a single dimensional entity of profit maximization or a multi-dimensional entity serving greater societal interests. Furthermore, the models are mostly descriptive in nature and are based on the experiences of western countries. There has been little attempt to develop a model that accounts for corporate social responsibility in diverse environments with differing socio-cultural and market settings. In this paper an attempt has been made to fill (...) this gap by developing a two-dimensional model of corporate social responsibility and empirically testing its validity in the context of two dissimilar cultures – Australia and Bangladesh. The two dimensions are the span of corporate responsibility and the range of outcomes of social commitments of businesses. The test results confirm the validity of the two-dimensional model in the two environments. The Factor analysis revealed two leading dimensions. Cluster analysis pointed to two distinctive clusters of managers in both Australia and Bangladesh, one consisting of managers with a broad contemporary concept of social responsibility, and the other with a limited narrow view. The paper concludes that corporate social responsibility is two-dimensional and universal in nature and that differing cultural and market settings in which managers operate may have little impact on the ethical perceptions of corporate managers. (shrink)

Two-classes of phase-space spin quasi-distribution functions are introduced and discussed. The first class of these distributions is based on the delta function construction. It is shown that such a construction can be carried out for an arbitrary spin s and an arbitrary ordering of the spin operators. The second class of the spin distributions is constructed with the help of the spin coherent states. The connection of the spin coherent states to the Stratonovich formalism is established and discussed. It is (...) shown that the c-number phase-space description of quantum fluctuations provides a simple statistical picture of quantum fluctuations of spinoperators in terms of random directions on a unit sphere. For quantum states of the spin system the statistics of these random orientations is given by non-positive spin quasi-distribution functions. It is shown that the application of these spin quasi-distribution functions to the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen correlations provide an insight into the quantum theory of measurement. (shrink)

In their environment, plants are continuously submitted to natural stimuli such as wind, rain, temperature changes, wounding, etc. These signals induce a cascade of events which lead to metabolic and morphogenetic responses. In this paper the different steps are described and discussed starting from the reception of the signal by a plant organ to the final morphogenetic response. In our laboratory two plants are studied: Bryonia dioica for which rubbing the internode results in reduced elongation and enhanced radial expansion and (...) Bidens pilosa for which the response occurs at distance, hence pricking the cotyledon of a plantlet induces the growth inhibition of both the hypocotyl and the axillary bud of the pricked cotyledon. Reception of the signal and transmission of the message. In Bryonia the signal is received by epidermal cells while in Bidens they are the cells adjacent to the midrib of the cotyledon which receive the mechanical signal. In both plants the message is transmitted via a wave of electric depolarization. This latter is composed of an action potential associated with a slow wave whose transmission rates are respectively 1cm s−1 and 1 mm s−1. Recent results have shown the involvement of Ca2+ in the triggering of the slow wave and the role of the H+ pump during the slow wave. Transient and fast biochemical responses. An entry of extraceilular Ca2+ into the cells and a transient increase in IP3 occur within seconds following the mechanical stimulus. At the same time, the membrane becomes more fluid, correlated with qualitative changes in phospholipids. The rapid increase in the concentration of peroxidated lipids may be correlated with ethylene biosynthesis which is stimulated after rubbing. Other parameters such as cytoplasmic pH, relative water content, hydric potential, membrane potential and modifications of K+, Mg2+-ATPase and Ca2+-ATPase activities, play a key role in the early responses induced by the traumatisms. Irreversible-biochemical responses. The mechanical stimulus performed on a Bryonia internode induces an acceleration of: i) enzymatic activities related to the lignification, ii) esterification of phenolic acids in the cell wall. Consequently the lignification process is accelerated. Storage of the information. After being received by the target cells the information can be stored during several days before being expressed. At the level of cotyledonary bud, the first message, previously stored, can be expressed or not by a second treatment. Bidens thus behaves as if it was able to “store” and to “retrieve” morphogenetic messages, using a sort of rudimentary memory. The nuclei of the bud cells of the pricked cotyledon show that these cells, initially in G2 phase, divide and then remain in the G1 phase. In Bryonia, calli derived from young stimulated internodes, keep thigmomorphogenetic characteristics during several weeks. In the last part of this paper the particularity of our plant model which permits a study of the transmission and storage of the message, is underlined. The links between the different steps induced by the stimulus are discussed. Special attention is devoted to second messengers and to the amplification of the message. (shrink)

Was the above-named bill, which was brought forward in 122 b.c. by the tribune M. Liuius Drusus, and provided that the Latins should under all circumstances be exempt from the penalty of scourging, duly passed by the Roman Assembly and entered upon the statute-book?

While new generations of implantable brain computer interface devices are being developed, evidence in the literature about their impact on the patient experience is lagging. In this article, we address this knowledge gap by analysing data from the first-in-human clinical trial to study patients with implanted BCI advisory devices. We explored perceptions of self-change across six patients who volunteered to be implanted with artificially intelligent BCI devices. We used qualitative methodological tools grounded in phenomenology to conduct in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Results (...) show that, on the one hand, BCIs can positively increase a sense of the self and control; on the other hand, they can induce radical distress, feelings of loss of control, and a rupture of patient identity. We conclude by offering suggestions for the proactive creation of preparedness protocols specific to intelligent—predictive and advisory—BCI technologies essential to prevent potential iatrogenic harms. (shrink)

The text of the lately discovered fragment of Antiphon's last and greatest speech, as restored by Professor Nicole, has been used by its editor to sanction some novel theories regarding the orator's public career.

It appears to be a generally accepted opinion among modern historians that the expedition which the Athenians led up-Nile in 459 B.C. in support of the Egyptian insurrection against Persia was an exceptionally large one, numbering no less than 200 sail. Modern authors also seem to imply, though they may not say so explicitly, that the whole of this armada was involved in the catastrophe which overtook the rebels in 454 B.C.

‘Ivravit in mea uerba tota Italia sponte sua et me belli quo uici ad Actium ducem depoposcit.’ In these words the Emperor Augustus clearly meant to suggest that the war in which he got rid of Mark Antony was none of his making, but was imposed upon him by the free and self-determined action of the Italian nation. Modern historians have unanimously refused to regard Augustus as a passive instrument in the hands of the Roman people at large; yet they (...) have generally accepted his account of the oath-taking of 32 B.C. as the outcome of a spontaneous burst of enthusiasm in his behalf, which they interpret as the reflex result of the nation's resentment against Antony's un-Roman and treasonable behaviour. (shrink)

It has usually been held, on the strength of several passages in Thucydides, that the Athenian army which was besieging Syracuse in 414–413 b.c. contained a contingent of Etruscans desirous of retaliating upon the Syracusans for losses inflicted upon them in past days—e.g., in 474 at Cumae and in 453 at Elba.