Although Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) has increased our ability to test and diagnose, its results are often not clear-cut and require a complex interpretation and negotiation process by both healthcare professionals and patients involved. In this paper, we explore how diagnoses identified through NGS are socially shaped under influence of the broader social context. Using an analytical framework stemming from the sociology of health and illness and science and technology studies, with a focus on the construction of diagnosis and the (...) role of uncertainty in medicine, we analyze the existing corpus of literature on NGS diagnostic practices. We show how in this early implementation phase of NGS, in which standardization efforts are not yet solidified, the boundary struggles around diagnoses obtained through NGS are particularly visible. We discuss the different steps in the diagnosis shaping process and what it subsequently entails to give and a receive a diagnosis using NGS. (shrink)

”This paper describes a new and innovative measure that is developed to predict workplace deviance through the measurement of Machiavellianism and Compliant Behavior. Two field studies were conducted to study the validity of the digital work simulation. In Study 1, support was found for the construct validity of the simulation. The constructs as measured with the simulation correlated significantly with self-reported measures of the constructs and were related to personality and self-esteem. Study 2 examined the criterion-related validity of the simulation (...) and showed that through the assessment of Machiavellianism the simulation was able to predict workplace deviance, and incrementally predicted organizational deviance over and above the Machiavellianism Personality Scale. Machiavellianism as measured with the simulation was less susceptible to social desirable answering compared to the Machiavellianism self-report. The paper finishes with study limitations, future research directions, and practical implications. (shrink)

The introduction of non-invasive prenatal testing in healthcare systems around the world offers an opportunity to reconsider funding policies for prenatal screening. In some countries with universal access healthcare systems, pregnant women and their partners are asked to pay for NIPT. In this paper, we discuss two important rationales for charging women for NIPT: to prevent increased uptake of NIPT and to promote informed choice. First, given the aim of prenatal screening, high or low uptake rates are not intrinsically desirable (...) or undesirable. Using funding policies to negatively affect uptake, however, is at odds with the aim of screening. Furthermore, copayment disproportionally affects those of lower socioeconomic status, which conflicts with justice requirements and impedes equal access to prenatal screening. Second, we argue that although payment models may influence pregnant women’s choice behaviours and perceptions of the relevance of NIPT, the copayment requirement does not necessarily lead to better-informed choices. On the contrary, external influences on women’s personal choices for or against prenatal screening should ideally be avoided. To improve informed decision-making, healthcare systems should instead invest in adequate non-directive, value-focused pretest counselling. This paper concludes that requiring copayments for NIPT in universal access healthcare systems fails to promote reproductive autonomy and is unfair. (shrink)

There is increasing concern about “surveillance capitalism,” whereby for-profit companies generate value from data, while individuals are unable to resist (Zuboff 2019). Non-profits using data-enabled surveillance receive less attention. Higher education institutions (HEIs) have embraced data analytics, but the wide latitude that private, profit-oriented enterprises have to collect data is inappropriate. HEIs have a fiduciary relationship to students, not a narrowly transactional one (see Jones et al, forthcoming). They are responsible for facets of student life beyond education. In addition to (...) classrooms, learning management systems, and libraries, HEIs manage dormitories, gyms, dining halls, health facilities, career advising, police departments, and student employment. HEIs collect and use student data in all of these domains, ostensibly to understand learner behaviors and contexts, improve learning outcomes, and increase institutional efficiency through “learning analytics” (LA). ID card swipes and Wi-Fi log-ins can track student location, class attendance, use of campus facilities, eating habits, and friend groups. Course management systems capture how students interact with readings, video lectures, and discussion boards. Application materials provide demographic information. These data are used to identify students needing support, predict enrollment demands, and target recruiting efforts. These are laudable aims. However, current LA practices may be inconsistent with HEIs’ fiduciary responsibilities. HEIs often justify LA as advancing student interests, but some projects advance primarily organizational welfare and institutional interests. Moreover, LA advances a narrow conception of student interests while discounting privacy and autonomy. Students are generally unaware of the information collected, do not provide meaningful consent, and express discomfort and resigned acceptance about HEI data practices, especially for non-academic data (see Jones et al. forthcoming). The breadth and depth of student information available, combined with their fiduciary responsibility, create a duty that HEIs exercise substantial restraint and rigorous evaluation in data collection and use. (shrink)

The paper is concerned with explaining some of the principal theoretical developments in elementary particle physics and discussing the associated methodological problems both in respect of heuristics and appraisal. Particular reference is made to relativistic quantum field theory, renormalization, Feynman diagram techniques, the analytic S-matrix and the Chew — Frautschi bootstrap.

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In the context of business, interactions between individuals generate social systems that emerge anywhere within a corporation or in its relations with external agents. These systems influence the behaviors of individuals and, as a result, the collective actions we usually attribute to corporations. Social systems thus make a difference in processes of action that are often morally evaluated by internal and external agents to the firm. Despite this relevance, social systems have not yet been the object of specific attention in (...) the literature on moral agency in business. To fill this gap, I construct a theoretical framework based on Luhmann’s ideas on social systems and morality. In particular, I argue that morality is a phenomenon that occurs in communication, and an agent can engage in morality in three different ways (as a _moral factor_, an _expressive moral agent_, or a _reflective moral agent_) depending on the functions it plays in communicative interactions. Based on this framework, I argue that social systems in business can be considered moral agents of those types. (shrink)

This comes near to satisfying; but even with ipsa the change of subject from tecta to plaustra is awkward, and exsultant is inappropriate to a lumbering plaustrum . I suggest reading cisia instead of ipsa. The cisium was a fast light two-wheeled vehicle which might well jump up on a rough road; and the first three letters cis could have become the -es of the MS exsultantes. Two further points: lapis uiai is not ‘a stone on the road’ , but (...) rather the stone of the road, i.e. the paving; and utrimque is not ‘on one side or the other’ but ‘on both sides’. There remains Ernout's objection that the suppression of the final s of lapis is unlikely. One can only say that no one would have ventured to introduce by conjecture pendentibu' structas or manantibu' stillent, but both are found in Lucretius' text. (shrink)

Ancient rhetoric divided the questions which concerned the orator into the definite and the indefinite, quaestiones finitae and quaestiones infinitae, the former concerned with particular persons and occasions, the latter without any such reference. To take a simple example from Quintilian, ‘Should one marry?’ is a quaestio infinita, ‘Should Cato marry?’ a quaestio finita. The distinction was introduced, or at any rate first clearly formulated, by Hermagoras in the second century B.C., and became an established part of rhetorical theory. The (...) Greek term for the indefinite, or general, question was none of the various Latin equivalents used by Cicero attained general currency, and the Greek term prevailed. (shrink)