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Jennifer A. Knight Elizabeth J. Comino Elizabeth Harris Lisa Jackson-Pulver 《Journal of bioethical inquiry》2009,6(4):467-476
Increasingly, the role of health research in improving the discrepancies in health outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous
populations in developed countries is being recognised. Along with this comes the recognition that health research must be
conducted in a manner that is culturally appropriate and ethically sound. Two key documents have been produced in Australia,
known as The Road Map and The Guidelines, to provide theoretical and philosophical direction to the ethics of Indigenous health
research. These documents identify research themes considered critical to improving the health of the nation’s Indigenous
peoples. They also provide values that, from an Indigenous perspective, are foundational to an ethical research process. This
paper examines these research themes and values within the context of a current longitudinal birth cohort study of Indigenous
infants and children in south-west Sydney: the Gudaga Study. Considerable time and effort have been invested in being true
to the values stated in these documents: reciprocity; respect; equality; responsibility; survival and protection; and spirit
and integrity. We have learnt that it is vital to be true to these values when conducting Indigenous health research—to quite
literally “walk the talk”. 相似文献
3.
Alexei Oskolski 《Biosemiotics》2011,4(2):201-222
Although the term taxon is one of the most common concepts in biology, a range of its meanings cannot be comprehended by an
universal definition. Usually, biologists construe their knowledge of “the same” taxon by substantially different interpretations,
so they find themselves in need either to justify this “multiplication of taxon essences”, or to surmount their plurality
unifying its interpretations into a single explanation of what a taxon is. In both cases, an ontological status (“reality”)
of that taxon is questioned. Therefore, discrepancy between universality of the taxon concept in biology and unavoidable plurality
of its interpretations can be regarded as a source of problem of the taxon ontology. The present work aims to clarify the
premises of this discrepancy using phenomenological approach. Three ways of the taxon positing (as a class, as a place in
the world, and as a individualized body) have been distinguished. Taxon as a class is established by common essence that is
shared by a set of living beings. These living beings are regarded as speculative objects beyond an idea of the world, i.e.
as objects of the experimental science. A question about ontology of taxon as a class refers to the scholastic problem of
universalia; its status can be defined within the scope of the nominalism/realism opposition. Taxon as a place of common appearance
of the specimens is regarded in the context of the etiological relations unifying various entities into the entire world.
Taxon as a place refers to a certain position in the Natural System that is construed as an etiological map of the world.
In this case a specimen of a living being is known as a curiosity, i.e. representant of its relationships as well as of the
place of its origin. Ontological status of a taxon as a place is to be clarified within the framework of the natural/artificial
opposition. The positing of a taxon as a collective body marked off by limits of joint survival of living beings is characteristic
for biology in the strict sense which arose in the very beginning of the 19 century. A taxon as a body established by the
techniques of disciplinary power sensu M. Foucault extended from the human bodies to bodies of other living beings. The ontological status of a taxon as a collective
body can be defined within the scope of the wild/domesticated opposition. Therefore, the discrepancy between the universality
of the taxon concept and the plurality of its interpretations is underlayed by interpenetration of three distinct modi of
taxon establishing. Distinguishing between these three modi can clarify sources of ontological problems concerned with the
term taxon in each case when they arise. 相似文献
4.
Comparisons of urban and rural bioclimatological conditions in the case of a Central-European city 总被引:11,自引:0,他引:11
Unger J 《International journal of biometeorology》1999,43(3):139-144
This paper examines the influence of a medium-sized city (Szeged, Hungary) on the bioclimatological conditions of human beings.
With the help of suitable indices for the available data set, differences in the annual and diurnal variation of human bioclimatic
characteristics between an urban and rural environment are evaluated over a 3-year period. These indices are the thermohygrometric
index (THI, defined by air temperature and relative humidity), the relative strain index (RSI, defined by air temperature
and vapour pressure) and the number of ”beergarden days” (defined by air temperature at 2100 hours). In urban and rural areas,
”hot” THI conditions characterize 6% and 1% of the year, ”comfortable” conditions 30% and 20%, ”cool” conditions 10% and 12%,
and ”cold” conditions 54% and 66% respectively. Over longer periods (e.g. one, month) RSI remains below the threshold value
for strong heat stress in the city. The monthly frequencies of beergarden days show that these days appears from May until
October and the city has almost twice as many pleasant evenings as the rural areas. Consequently, the city favourably modifies
the main climatological elements within the general climate of its region; periods likely to be comfortable are therefore
found more frequently in the city than in rural areas.
Received: 24 November 1998 / Revised: 14 June 1999 / Accepted: 4 August 1999 相似文献
5.
Michael A. Ashby 《Journal of bioethical inquiry》2011,8(2):151-154
The term “futility” has been widely used in medical ethics and clinical medicine for more than twenty years now. At first
glance it appears to offer a clear-cut categorical characterisation of medical treatments at the end of life, and an apparently
objective way of making decisions that are seen to be emotionally painful for those close to the patient, and ethically, and
also potentially legally hazardous for clinicians. It also appears to deal with causation, because omission of a futile treatment
cannot surely be a cause of death. The problem is that futility can be argued to be a “false friend”, in that it gives an
appearance of representing a reliable conceptual basis, in ethics, for limitation of medical treatment—usually in the context
of dying—without actually doing so. In fact, the concept of futility is a conflation of clinical judgement about outcomes
of treatment and the quality or even value of life, and has really failed to contribute much to the advancement of decision-making
and hence care at the end-of-life. It also has the capacity to medicalise the personal space. Deliberations about the likely
outcomes of medical treatment are necessary, and medical expertise is pivotal. However, futility is argued to have a better
future in partnership with a broad social action agenda about the process of dying, such as that articulated in health promoting
palliative care, as a basis for better “death-ways” in the 21st century (Kellehear 2005). Medicine needs to more honest and
upfront about its limits, as death is, after all, the elephant in everybody's room. 相似文献
6.
John Miles Little 《Journal of bioethical inquiry》2010,7(1):91-102
Aesthetics is a vexed topic in philosophy, with a long history. For my purposes, an aesthetic experience is a foundational
affective response to an object, to which terms such as “ugly”, “beautiful”, “pretty” or “harmonious” are applied. These terms
are derived from a Discourse of aesthetics; some remain constant, others change from generation to generation. Aesthetics
and ethics have been linked in Western thought since the days of Plato and Aristotle. This essay examines what is happening
to that link in contemporary experience. It emphasises the ways in which the popular media exploit aesthetic appeal to penetrate
their market, and to exploit and frame intuitive responses to current and past events. Production values, the artfulness of
editors and the financial interests of producers and directors thus do much to determine contemporary aesthetic and ethical
judgements. That which is beautifully presented invites the ethical involvement of the audience. Events whose images are beautifully
presented constitute “hyperevidence”, a pre-judged, reinforced and amplified illusion of reality and participation. Understanding
how aesthetic excellence draws audiences into ethical relationship with what is presented becomes an important part of education
in ethics, including bioethics. 相似文献
7.
Maree Porter Ian H. Kerridge Christopher F. C. Jordens 《Journal of bioethical inquiry》2012,9(1):41-47
Umbilical cord blood banking is one of many biomedical innovations that confront pregnant women with new choices about what
they should do to secure their own and their child’s best interests. Many mothers can now choose to donate their baby’s umbilical
cord blood (UCB) to a public cord blood bank or pay to store it in a private cord blood bank. Donation to a public bank is
widely regarded as an altruistic act of civic responsibility. Paying to store UCB may be regarded as a “unique opportunity”
to provide “insurance” for the child’s future. This paper reports findings from a survey of Australian women that investigated
the decision to either donate or store UCB. We conclude that mothers are faced with competing discourses that force them to
choose between being a “good mother” and fulfilling their role as a “good citizen.” We discuss this finding with reference
to the concept of value pluralism. 相似文献
8.
Bruno Notarnicola Gjalt Huppes Nico W. van den Berg 《The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment》1998,3(5):289-300
LCA aims to help direct decisions in an environmentally sustainable direction. It indicates the environmental effects of choices
and evaluates these against this background. Approaches to evaluation in LCA differ substantially, related to the way of modelling
environmental effects and to the way these effects are combined into an overall judgement on alternative options. Several
approaches are now operational, which are linked to different paradigms in decision making. It is shown that the choice of
paradigm is quite decisive on the outcome of the analysis. Also within similar paradigms, different methods now operational
may lead to different outcomes. These latter differences may be alleviated more easily than those related to paradigmatic
choices, as they are partly a matter of refinement, and they partly result from legitimate differences in subjective priorities.
The more basic paradigmatic differences can hardly be bridged. The practical relevancy of the subject is proven by applying
different operational methods to one case, showing widely differing outcomes. The paradigm behind evaluating environmental
effects is either values based, directly or through policy decisions, or economics based, as individual preferences measured
in the monetary terms of willingness-to-pay. Accordingly, the different methods are “policy-oriented” or “monetary”. It may
be doubted if the differences between these can be overcome in standardisation. 相似文献
9.
J. Wilson White 《Theoretical Ecology》2011,4(3):357-370
All else being equal, inversely density-dependent (IDD) mortality destabilizes population dynamics. However, stability has
not been investigated for cases in which multiple types of density dependence act simultaneously. To determine whether IDD
mortality can destabilize populations that are otherwise regulated by directly density-dependent (DDD) mortality, I used scale
transition approximations to model populations with IDD mortality at smaller “aggregation” scales and DDD mortality at larger
“landscape” scales, a pattern observed in some reef fish and insect populations. I evaluated dynamic stability for a range
of demographic parameter values, including the degree of compensation in DDD mortality and the degree of spatial aggregation,
which together determine the relative importance of DDD and IDD processes. When aggregation-scale survival was a monotonically
increasing function of density (a “dilution” effect), dynamics were stable except for extremely high levels of aggregation
combined with either undercompensatory landscape-scale density dependence or certain values of adult fecundity. When aggregation-scale
survival was a unimodal function of density (representing both “dilution” and predator “detection” effects), instability occurred
with lower levels of aggregation and also depended on the values of fecundity, survivorship, detection effect, and DDD compensation
parameters. These results suggest that only in extreme circumstances will IDD mortality destabilize dynamics when DDD mortality
is also present, so IDD processes may not affect the stability of many populations in which they are observed. Model results
were evaluated in the context of reef fish, but a similar framework may be appropriate for a diverse range of species that
experience opposing patterns of density dependence across spatial scales. 相似文献
10.
In the late 1960s Van Rensselaer Potter, a biochemist and cancer researcher, thought that our survival was threatened by the
domination of military policy makers and producers of material goods ignorant of biology. He called for a new field of Bioethics—“a
science of survival.” Bioethics did develop, but with a narrower focus on medical ethics. Recently there have been attempts
to broaden that focus to bring biomedical ethics together with environmental ethics. Though the two have many differences—in
habits of thought, scope of concern, and value commitments—in this paper we argue that they often share common cause and we
identify common ground through an examination of two case studies, one addressing drug development, the other food production. 相似文献
11.
Brian Belcher Genevieve Michon Arild Angelsen Manuel Ruiz Pérez Heidi Asbjornsen 《Economic botany》2005,59(3):245-253
There is a range of forest management systems between pure extraction and plantation systems. Such “intermediate systems”
range from wild forests modified for increased production of selected products to anthropogenic forests with a high-density
of valuable species growing within a relatively diverse and complex structure. These systems, classed here as “Forest Garden
Systems” (FGS), have important socioeconomic and ecological benefits, and yet they have been largely overlooked by researchers,
development practitioners, and policy makers. Based on case examples and the authors’ experience, this paper analyzes the
socioeconomic and institutional factors that explain the development, persistence, and decline of FGS. These systems combine
productivity and biodiversity values and are important components in the diverse economic systems of their managers. As such,
the model warrants increased attention to protect existing values, to support the adaptation of existing systems to changing
circumstances, and to inform the development of new models of integrated forest management 相似文献
12.
Leigh Turner 《Journal of bioethical inquiry》2009,6(1):83-98
Anthropologists and sociologists offer numerous critiques of bioethics. Social scientists criticize bioethicists for their
arm-chair philosophizing and socially ungrounded pontificating, offering philosophical abstractions in response to particular
instances of suffering, making all-encompassing universalistic claims that fail to acknowledge cultural differences, fostering
individualism and neglecting the importance of families and communities, and insinuating themselves within the “belly” of
biomedicine. Although numerous aspects of bioethics warrant critique and reform, all too frequently social scientists offer
ungrounded, exaggerated criticisms of bioethics. Anthropological and sociological critiques of bioethics are hampered by the
tendency to equate bioethics with clinical ethics and moral theory in bioethics with principlist bioethics. Also, social scientists
neglect the role of bioethicists in addressing organizational ethics and other “macro-social” concerns. If anthropologists
and sociologists want to provide informed critiques of bioethics they need to draw upon research methods from their own fields
and develop richer, more informed analyses of what bioethicists say and do in particular social settings. 相似文献
13.
Günter Theißen 《Theorie in den Biowissenschaften》2009,128(1):43-51
Since 150 years it is hypothesized now that evolution always proceeds in a countless number of very small steps (Darwin in
On the origin of species by means of natural selection or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle of life, Murray,
London, 1859), a view termed “gradualism”. Few contemporary biologists will doubt that gradualism reflects the most frequent mode of evolution,
but whether it is the only one remains controversial. It has been suggested that in some cases profound (“saltational”) changes
may have occurred within one or a few generations of organisms. Organisms with a profound mutant phenotype that have the potential
to establish a new evolutionary lineage have been termed “hopeful monsters”. Recently I have reviewed the concept of hopeful
monsters in this journal mainly from a historical perspective, and provided some evidence for their past and present existence.
Here I provide a brief update on data and discussions supporting the view that hopeful monsters and saltational evolution
are valuable biological concepts. I suggest that far from being mutually exclusive scenarios, both gradual and saltational
evolution are required to explain the complexity and diversity of life on earth. In my view, gradual changes represent the
usual mode of evolution, but are unlikely to be able to explain all key innovations and changes in body plans. Saltational
changes involving hopeful monsters are probably very exceptional events, but since they have the potential to establish profound
novelties sometimes facilitating adaptive radiations, they are of quite some importance, even if they would occur in any evolutionary
lineage less than once in a million years. From that point of view saltational changes are not more bizarre scenarios of evolutionary
change than whole genome duplications, endosymbiosis or impacts of meteorites. In conclusion I argue that the complete dismissal
of saltational evolution is a major historical error of evolutionary biology tracing back to Darwin that needs to be rectified. 相似文献
14.
Detection of Insulin resistance (IR) in normoglycemic young subjects before the onset of Impaired Glucose Tolerance (IGT)
is of importance as it affords implementation of preventive measures in such high risk subject. Very few studies have specifically
evaluated for the presence of IR in younger age group with normal glucose tolerance. The gold standard for investigating and
quantifying insulin resistance is the “hyperinsulinemic euglycemic clamp,” the complicated nature of the “clamp” technique,
alternatives have been sought to simplify the measurement of insulin resistance. The oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) is
one of the most commonly used methods to evaluate whole body glucose tolerance in vivo. IR and IS values of HOMA-IR, ISI0–120, QUICKIE mathematical models derived from OGTT have been shown to produce equivalent results as in Euglycemic clamp technique
we hypothesized that normoglycemic young adult who are siblings of type II diabetics (SD) probably have higher IR values than
the siblings of non diabetics as they are genetically predisposed. 相似文献
15.
Plants are attractive biological resources because of their ability to produce a huge variety of chemical compounds, and the familiarity of production in even the most rural settings. Genetic engineering gives plants additional characteristics and value for cultivation and post-harvest. Genetically modified (GM) plants of the “first generation” were conferred with traits beneficial to producers, whereas GM plants in subsequent “generations” are intended to provide beneficial traits for consumers. Golden Rice is a promising example of a GM plant in the second generation, and has overcome a number of obstacles for practical use. Furthermore, consumer-acceptable plants with health-promoting properties that are genetically modified using native genes are being developed. The emerging technology of metabolomics will also support the commercial realization of GM plants by providing comprehensive analyzes of plant biochemical components. 相似文献
16.
Bert Heinrichs 《Journal of bioethical inquiry》2011,8(1):59-65
It has become evident that neuroimaging raises new normative questions that cannot be addressed adequately within the (in
this regard unspecific) frameworks of existing research ethics. Questions that are especially troubling are, among others,
provoked by incidental findings. Two questions are particularly intricate in view of incidental findings: (1) How can the
research subject’s right not to know be guaranteed? And (2) should a diagnostic check of scans by a neuroradiologist become
an obligatory part of neuroscientific research protocols? The present paper examines these question against the background
of two recent recommendations. The differentiation between “difference position” and “similarity position” serves as an analytic
tool to further investigate the issue and to develop a distinct proposal for answering the questions. 相似文献
17.
G Libertini 《Biochemistry. Biokhimii?a》2012,77(7):795-798
The classical approach of evolutionism is based on the concept of the survival of the fittest individuals. More and more data
indicate that natural selection often acts with supra-individual mechanisms favoring genes and actions harmful for the individual.
The most striking type of cases is when an individual kills himself or his offspring by actions genetically determined or
favored. The neologism “phenoptosis” describes these events and implicates that they are not evolutionary anomalies but physiological
phenomena determined by natural selection. The most important and familiar kind of phenoptosis, the “slow phenoptosis” or
aging, which is currently considered an inevitable and scarcely changeable event, is transformed by this different interpretation
into a function, in principle modifiable and manageable. Perhaps, the neologism “phenoptosis” will represent, together with
the term supra-individual selection, the mark of a vital enrichment of evolutionism, conceived in broader terms of which the
individual selection is just a particular case, and will be referred to as the brand and the standard for the start of a new
era. 相似文献
18.
Alexander K. Lautensach 《Journal of bioethical inquiry》2009,6(4):437-455
The deep and lasting changes to human behaviour that are required to address the global environmental crisis necessitate profound
shifts in moral foundations. They amount to a change in what individuals and societies conceive of as progress. This imperative
raises important questions about the justification, ends, and means of large-scale changes in people’s ethics. In this essay
I will focus on the ends—the direction of moral change as prescribed by the goal of sustainable human flourishing. I shall
present a meta-ethical critique of anthropocentrism and propose that only an ecocentric ethic can support the sustainable
flourishing of humanity. This proposition does not necessarily contradict itself. My claim will be that the values subsumed
under the broad concept of anthropocentrism are categorically counterproductive, informing an undesirable concept of “progress”.
I support this claim with two lines of argument. On the one hand, the end values of anthropocentrism are shallow and the “flourishing
of humanity” is ill-defined. The conceptual constraints of anthropocentrism itself preclude a more concise definition which
would take into account the utter dependence of the flourishing of humanity on the health of ecological support structures.
On the other hand, pursuing the values that inform the actions of anthropocentrists (which may be identical with the “flourishing
of humanity”) leads to unintended and undesirable outcomes, even from the view of the anthropocentrist herself. Those problems
are not encountered with an ecocentric ethic, and the conceptual steps necessary to adopt it are not insurmountable. 相似文献
19.
Joseph D. DiBattista 《Conservation Genetics》2008,9(1):141-156
Genetic variation is considered critical for allowing natural populations to adapt to their changing environment, and yet
the effects of human disturbance on genetic variation in the wild are poorly understood. Different types of human disturbances
may genetically impact natural populations in a predictable manner and so the aim of this study was to provide an overview
of these changes using a quantitative literature review approach. I examined both allozyme and microsatellite estimates of
genetic variation from peer-reviewed journals, using the mean number of alleles per locus and expected heterozygosity as standardized
metrics. Populations within each study were categorized according to the type of human disturbance experienced (“hunting/harvest”,
“habitat fragmentation”, or “pollution”), and taxon-specific, as well as time- and context-dependent disturbance effects were
considered. I found that human disturbances are associated with weak, but consistent changes in neutral genetic variation
within natural populations. The direction of change was dependent on the type of human disturbance experienced, with some
forms of anthropogenic challenges consistently decreasing genetic variation from background patterns (e.g., habitat fragmentation),
whereas others had no effect (e.g., hunting/harvest) or even slightly increased genetic variation (e.g., pollution). These
same measures appeared sensitive to both the time of origin and duration of the disturbance as well. This suggests that the
presence or absence, strength, type, as well as the spatial and temporal scale of human disturbance experienced may warrant
careful consideration when conservation management plans are formulated for natural populations, with particular attention
paid to the effects of habitat fragmentation. 相似文献
20.
This study is part of an extensive research program on pheromones aiming to analyze in depth and on a wide scale man's olfaction
and its ability to distinguish pheromone-like substances either of male and female origin, as well as the evolution of such
ability at different physiological stages during his life. Olfaction tests were conducted on a group of 1318 school children
(aged 6 to 14) by mean of “Biologically relevant” substances. Younger males and females showed the same responses to Pirroline
Isovalerianate Butyrate and to Androstandiol in an high percentage of cases. Response variability gradually increases with
aging and this could be explained assuming that sensitivity to biological smells keeps up with their emission or, even more,
with hormone development which originates them. Hormone research is currently being carried on in order to prove such assumption. 相似文献