INTER‐ETHICS: TOWARDS AN INTERACTIVE AND INTERDEPENDENT BIOETHICS

Since its origin bioethics has been a specialized, academic discipline, focussing on moral issues, using a vast set of globalized principles and rational techniques to evaluate and guide healthcare practices. With the emergence of a plural society, the loss of faith in experts and authorities and the decline of overarching grand narratives and shared moralities, a new approach to bioethics is needed. This approach implies a shift from an external critique of practices towards embedded ethics and interactive practice improvement, and from a legal defence of rights towards fostering interdependent practices of responsibility. This article describes these transitions within bioethics in relation to the broader societal and cultural dynamics within Western societies, and traces the implications for the methodologies and changing roles of the bioethicist. The bioethicist we foresee is not just a clever expert but also a relationally sensitive person who engages stakeholders in reciprocal dialogues about their practice of responsibility and helps to integrate various sorts of knowledge (embodied, experiential, visual, and cognitive‐scientific). In order to illustrate this new approach, we present a case study. It concerns a project focusing on an innovation in elderly care, based on the participation of various stakeholders, especially older people themselves.     

Tetrahymena pyriformis as a Model System for Membrane Studies*†

SYNOPSIS. Tetrahymena pyriformis is an exceptionally useful subject for studying metabolic interrelationships among intracellular membranes. Its advantages include the striking differences in lipid composition among the cell's various functionally distinct membrane systems, indicating a pronounced lipid specificity at the membrane sites. The magnitude of these differences permits analysis of the mechanisms underlying the specificity. Even more valuable is the unique physical isolation of ciliate surface membranes from the cytoplasm of the cell. In contrast to the almost immediate equilibration of newly made lipids with preexisting lipids found in most cells, Tetrahymena surface membranes have a lipid turnover slow enough to be conveniently analyzed. Finally, the well-studied responses of Tetrahymena to such physiological stresses as heat and starvation may be used to evaluate the effects of environmental factors on membrane formation.     

4号染色体短臂微卫星多态性与鼻咽癌相关性的研究

鼻咽癌（NPC）是一种多因素复杂疾病。其发病过程涉及EB病毒慢性感染、环境致癌因素及宿主基因之间的相互作用。在这一过程中,那些宿主基因在EB病毒感染及鼻咽癌的发生发展中起了关键作用仍不清楚。 本研究的目的是发现与鼻咽癌发生发展中两个关键步骤相关的遗传变异,即EB病毒持续性感染鼻咽部上皮细胞和鼻咽癌的形成。我们在广西梧州市及苍梧县鼻咽癌高发区收集汉族鼻咽癌患者350例、EB病毒壳抗原IgA抗体阳性者(IgA/VCA+)288例和EB病毒壳抗原IgA抗体阴性者(IgA/VCA-)346例。对先前鼻咽癌家系研究显示的鼻咽癌易感区4号染色体短臂（4p15.1-q12）进行了微卫星精细扫描,在 18 Mb的范围内选择34个微卫星标记,包括319个等位基因,对其进行基因分型。比较分析NPC 组和IgA/VCA+组等位基因频率结果显示,9个等位基因与鼻咽癌呈相关,其中5个为易感等位基因（OR=1.51-5.36, p=0.01-0.03）,4个为限制性等位基因（OR值为0.3-0.71, p值为0.02-0.045）。比较分析IgA/VCA+组和IgA/VCA-组及比较所有IgA/VCA+者（包括NPC患者）和IgA/VCA-者等位基因频率的结果显示,12个等位基因与EB病毒壳抗原IgA抗体持续存在相关,其中3个在两组比较中均呈显著相关。等位基因 D4S3241-136 (p=0.004, OR=1.9, 95%CI=1.2-3.0) 和D4S3347-213 (p=0.001, OR=1.6, 95%CI=1.2-2.1) 可增加EB病毒 IgA/VCA抗体形成的危险,为易感基因;而等位基因D4S174-202 (p=0.001, OR=0.5, 95%CI=0.3-0.7) 可限制IgA/VCA抗体的形成。 但上述结果经多因素比较校正后,均失去相关性。我们的研究结果不能 确定该区域与鼻咽癌的形成相关,而另一个家系研究的结果也未得出相关的结果,但本研究却提供了进一步发现鼻咽癌相关基因的研究模式。有关4号染色体短臂 与EB病毒慢性持续感染及鼻咽癌的形成仍值得进一步深入研究。     

COMPARISONS BETWEEN PALAEOCENE–EOCENE PARATROPICAL SWAMP AND MARGINAL MARINE POLLEN FLORAS FROM ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI, USA

Abstract:  Climate warming at the Palaeocene/Eocene boundary ( c . 55.8 Ma) had significant permanent affects on paratropical and warm-adapted vegetation types. Pollen and spore records which document vegetation turnover from the eastern US Gulf Coast have all been taken from sediments of marginal marine depositional environments. Pollen and spores (sporomorphs) are preserved excellently in these marginal marine depositional environments but these assemblages contain grains transported from many different vegetation types and over huge geographic distances. Currently it is unclear whether the turnover from important paratropical areas like the US Gulf Coast is a reflection on actual vegetation change in the local region or from source areas far away in the continental interior. Sporomorph data from 20 former swamps (lignites) from the Nanafalia, Tuscahoma and Hatchetigbee formations in Mississippi and Alabama, USA, are used to test the fidelity of the marine sporomorph record across the Palaeocene–Eocene transition. Data show that extinction is noted in the swamp record (≥7 per cent of Palaeocene taxa) and that swamps were susceptible to immigration in the Early Eocene with the first occurrences of Brosipollis spp. (Burseraceae), Dicolpopollis spp. (Palmae), Nuxpollenites psilatus (Loranthaceae) and Platycarya spp. (Juglandaceae). Swamps have higher within-sample diversity in the Eocene but higher among-sample diversity in latest Palaeocene–earliest Eocene samples, which parallels exactly diversity trends estimated from marine sporomorph assemblages. Palms also increase in abundance in the Eocene. The swamp data demonstrate that the flora growing in these ancient paratropical forests was diverse ( c. 120 taxonomic groups) but incorporated an unusual admixture of plants with modern tropical affinities together with those that now live in modern temperate to subtropical North America.     

Intraspecific variation in the postcranial skeleton morphology in African clariids: a case study of extreme phenotypic plasticity

Taxonomic relationships within the Clariidae, especially within the anguilliform species, are currently ambiguous due to the lack of a reliable structure of valid generic and specific characteristics. Based on the information available, it is difficult to properly diagnose the different elongated genera and species; this is due in part to a high degree of variability of certain traits generally considered to be important taxonomically. For example, the caudal skeleton is often considered to be an important diagnostic trait. However, the degree of phenotypic plasticity has not hitherto been adequately assessed. This paper deals with interspecific variation of the caudal skeleton of Clarias gariepinus , Platyallabes tihoni , Platyclarias machadoi , Gymnallabes typus , Channallabes apus and Dolichallabes microphthalmus . The caudal skeleton of C. apus is studied, using specimens from three regions in Gabon. Hypural fusions and haemal and neural spines show most variation. The observed morphological variation appears to be geographically independent, in contrast to other morphological features such as vertebrae.  © 2004 The Linnean Society of London, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society , 2004, 140 , 437–446.     

Actin in Tetrahymena paravorax: Ultrastructural Localization of HMM-Binding Filaments in Glycerinated Cells1,2

Actin has been identified in the ciliated protozoon Tetrahymena paravorax on the basis of the ultrastructural detection of filaments typically decorated with heavy meromyosin (HMM) in glycerinated microstome cells. These filaments are widely distributed in endoplasmic and cortical regions and can form bundles. They are particularly numerous in elongating cells; HMM-binding filaments run approximately parallel to rib microtubules in the ectoplasm of the right wall of the buccal cavity and seem to extend to the cytopharyngeal region, suggesting some role of actin in maintenance of the crest-trough pattern of ribbed wall and/or in formation of food vacuoles. Extensive actin bundles are observed below some membranellar areas and are thought to follow the course of the microtubular “deep fiber bundle.” The “fine filamentous reticulum” underlying the oral ribs and the “apical ring” extending beneath kinetosomes of ciliary couplets display filaments that do not bind HMM and are ? 14 nm in diameter. No evidence for actin in these structures was obtained in the present study. The “specialized cytoplasm” of the cytostome-cytopharyngeal region appears as an undecorated reticulum with 20 nm-spaced nodes. Occasionally HMM-binding filaments were found inside the macronucleus, just beneath its envelope. Actin is suggested to be involved in cell shaping and in control of the transport of food vacuoles.     

Mechanism of Resistance to Steroids: Glucocorticoid Receptor Defect in Lymphoma Cells

GLUCOCORTICOIDS cause cytolysis of normal and neoplastic lymphoid cells^1,2—a reaction which is one basis for the use of these compounds in the therapy of neoplastic, autoimmune and other diseases of the lymphoid system. Unfortunately, resistance to steroids often develops during treatment, rendering the hormones therapeutically ineffective.     

Silurus anguillaris Linnaeus, 1758: designation as type species of Clarias Scopoli, 1777 and rediscovery of holotype (Pisces: Clariidae)

Silurus anquillaris Linnaeus, 1758 is designated as the type species of the catfish genus Clarias Scopoli, 1777. The holotype of this species was rediscovered in the Linnean fish collection of the Swedish Museum of Natural History.