The rapid rise of international collaborative science has enabled access to genomic data. In this article, it is argued that to move beyond mapping genomic variation to understanding its role in complex disease aetiology and treatment will require extending data sharing for the purposes of clinical research translation and implementation.

Legal judgments are complex in nature and hence a brief summary of the judgment, known as a headnote , is generated by experts to enable quick perusal. Headnote generation is a time consuming process and there have been attempts made at automating the process. The difficulty in interpreting such automatically generated summaries is that they are not coherent and do not convey the relative relevance of the various components of the judgment. A legal judgment can be segmented into coherent chunks (...) based on the rhetorical roles played by the sentences. In this paper, a comprehensive system is proposed for labeling sentences with their rhetorical roles and extracting structured head notes automatically from legal judgments. An annotated data set was created with the help of legal experts and used as training data. A machine learning technique, Conditional Random Field, is applied to perform document segmentation by identifying the rhetorical roles. The present work also describes the application of probabilistic models for the extraction of key sentences and composing the relevant chunks in the form of a headnote. The understanding of basic structures and distinct segments is shown to improve the final presentation of the summary. Moreover, by adding simple additional features the system can be extended to other legal sub-domains. The proposed system has been empirically evaluated and found to be highly effective on both the segmentation and summarization tasks. The final summary generated with underlying rhetorical roles improves the readability and efficiency of the system. (shrink)

Prohibition on sex selection may well be unnecessary and oppressive as well as posing risks to women’s lives The urge to select children’s sex is not new. The Babylonian Talmud, a Jewish text completed towards the end of the fifth century of the Christian era, advises couples on means to favour the birth of either a male or a female child.1 The development of amniocentesis alerted the public in the mid-1970s to the scientific potential for prenatal determination of fetal sex,2 (...) and progressive decriminalisation of abortion afforded choice about continuation of pregnancy. The more recent emergence of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) obviates resort to abortion, and improved techniques of sperm sorting and diagnosis permit creation of zygotes that will ensure the sex of a future child. Growth of biomedical means to select the sex of future children has been accompanied by fear that such means will be employed to favour births of sons, and so perpetuate devaluation of girl children and women’s inferior family and social status. A reaction to this fear has been the demand for legal and medical professional prohibition of sex selection techniques. For instance, the Council of Europe’s Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine3 provides in article 14 that: The use of techniques of medically assisted procreation shall not be allowed for the purpose of choosing a future child’s sex, except where serious hereditary sex-related disease is to be avoided. Legislation has been enacted in a number of countries, and proposed in others, to prohibit sex selection on non-medical grounds, such as the Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act, 1994 in India. In Canada, for instance, government draft legislation introduced in May 2002 proposes to make it a crime for any person, for the purpose of creating a human …. (shrink)

Pediatric critical careCritical care refers to the health care of children with life-threatening illness or following major surgery or severe injury. This care is offered in different contexts across the globe. In well-resourced environments, critical careCritical care may be provided in pediatric intensive care units, which provide highly complex medical care with advanced, potentially expensive technological devices aimed primarily at sustaining life; whereas in poorly resourced regions, only primary care may be available for critically ill or injured childrenInjured children. Even (...) where PICU facilities are available, they are a scarce and expensive resource. The knowledge and ability to sustain a critically ill or injured child’sInjured children life, potentially with effects on the child and family’s quality of lifeQuality of life and at the expense of other children’s health care, leads to frequent ethical challenges. Ethical issues related to how best to ensure optimal quality of lifeQuality of life and the fair distribution of scarce resources are common. In-depth knowledge and understanding of the individual patient’s medical, scientific and psychosocial context, through interdisciplinary discussion and collaboration; as well as familiarity with the overriding, relevant ethico-legal policiesPolicy and principles is essential for appropriate decision-makingDecision-making. Truthful communicationCommunication with the family is essential, using a shared decision-makingDecision-making process, and the child’s best interestBest interest must be central to every decision. This chapter presents an overview of the recommended approach to, and important considerations for, ethical decision-makingDecision-making in the PICU, using a hypothetical case example. (shrink)

We have found a new computer solution to the aesthetic field equations. This solution describes a two-particle system with more structure than previously found. The contour lines show an arm structure. We have observed four arms around the maximum center. The location of the maximum (minimum) center is not along a straight line as a function of time. This is the first time that such an effect has been observed for any kind of nonlinear partial differential equation, so far as (...) we know. A further discussion of the aesthetic principles leading to the field equations is given. (shrink)

In the UK, over 70% of AIDS, including new cases, is located in a few Districts in central London where the distribution of previously occurring and new cases is essentially confined to the original risk groups of homosexual/bisexual men, drug addicts of both sexes, and some of their sexual partners and consorts. But control policy is still based on the assumption that HIV has already spread from persons in these risk groups into the general population, and that it will spread (...) hereafter at an increased rate because of heterosexual transmission to cause a widespread epidemic of AIDS.The basis and implications of this policy were investigated in the South East region adjacent to London, Analysis of demographic and epidemiological data shows that, with one exception, there is very little extension of AIDS from affected Districts in London to the surrounding region or even to the suburban fringe. Where AIDS is prevalent, as in this exception, the distribution follows the same, original pattern which relates essentially to risks arising from life-styles. There is no significant association between the prevalence or spread of AIDS and conventional markers of deprivation, economic and social disadvantage.Allocations of personnel, services and expenditure, assessed from returns required under the AIDS Control Act of 1987 and official registration data, continue to follow the original policy assumptions. They are therefore unrelated to the numbers of existing and new cases, disproportionate and unrealistic. Claims that this widespread excess of effort is justified by the fact that AIDS has not spread to the general population are falsified by the continuation of cases almost exclusively in risk groups. There is nothing in the data required under the Act or in registrations in this main locus of AIDS in the UK to suggest any change in this or to justify continuation of current expenditure and redundant activities.There is no evidence in these data that ethnic variations in the resident populations of Districts are associated with variations in the prevalence of AIDS. However, the larger figures available in some of the national data do indicate a disproportionate increase in some minority ethnic groups. Further detail about risks factors in these groups are required and, meanwhile, effort and expenditure should be re-orientated toward treatment, contact tracing and other public health measures for more effective containment of the continuing spread of AIDS in all the high risk groups. (shrink)

William of Malmesbury's Regesta Regum Anglorum is one of the great histories of England, and one of the most important historical works of the European Middle Ages. Although its focus is national, its scope encompasses most of Western Europe and beyond, providing a full-scale account of the First Crusade. Apart from its formidable learning, it is characterized by narrative skill and entertainment value - with topics including unpowered flight and Henry I's zoo. This edition in the Oxford Medieval Texts series (...) is the first modern translation and edition. A full historical introduction is supplied in Volume II. (shrink)

Causes for celibacy, divorces and successful marriage are discussed in the article. Absence of true love and inability to build and keep it are the main reasons for family disruption. Amorousness, immature love and various forms of false or flawed love substitute the true feeling. It is caused by increased women’s independence, loss of mutual understanding and trust (due to infidelity or jealousy), incompatibility of characters or values. Celibacy is often conditioned by physical disability, revaluation of freedom and independence, huge (...) requirements to partners, consumer attitude to life, infertility, alcohol and drug abuse, abnormalities in personality and sexuality. (shrink)

(1979). A Comparison of Item‐ Total Point Biserial Correlation, Rasch and Alpha‐Beater Item Analysis Procedures. Educational Studies: Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 265-273.

The study of actions is of major importance in social science regardless of whether the investigator is or isn’t a behaviorist. Actions constitute much if not all of an observational substratum which both prompts explanation and confirms prediction. Actions are of interest both as samples of what an animal can do and as symptoms of underlying structures, either psychic or physical. Doubtless, actions as symptoms of underlying structures are, in the long run, of greater importance in social science than actions (...) as samples of capacities, for to be able to predict an organism’s further performance on the basis of knowledge of capacities is not necessarily to understand the organism. Understanding actions, if it is indeed the desideratum of social science—as I take it to be—involves more, however, than the viewing of actions as symptomatic of underlying structures. Actions are obviously bearers of meaning in and for a given social context, and this meaning is for both the agent and actual or imagined spectators. Spectators can be said to do their viewing both at the time the action takes place and also, in a sense, at later times when recalling or reading reports of a now past action. (shrink)

The 1995 Encyclopedia of Bioethics is an almost complete reworking of the original 1978 edition, due to the expanding nature of the field. The following article focuses on how the second edition of the Encyclopedia deals with the topic of “clinical ethics” and three related topics: “nursing ethics”, “trust”, and “conflict of interest”. We assess their relevance to the current developments in these fields and the Encyclopedia's usefulness as a resource to ethics consultants, researchers and clinicians. We emphasize the heterogeneity (...) of clinical ethics as a still new and evolving field. (shrink)

1. As always, before beginning a discussion it is necessary to settle on the concepts with which one will operate. In the present instance we will be concerned not only with the concept of determinism, but with others associated with or correlative to it: law, causality, necessity, etc. Obviously, within the limits of a brief paper we can deal only with the most basic features.