Metaphors for describing the introduction, impacts, and management of non-native species are numerous and often quite outspoken. Policy-makers have adopted increasingly disputed metaphorical terms from scientific discourse. We performed a critical analysis of the use of strong metaphors in reporting scientific findings to policy-makers. Our analysis shows that perceptions of harm, invasiveness or nativeness are dynamic and inevitably display multiple narratives in science, policy or management. Improving our awareness of multiple expert and stakeholder narratives that exist in the context of (...) non-native species management, as well as metaphorical alternatives, is critical. (shrink)

...It is clear that there exists in the history of ethics the problem that naturalist systems of ethics frequently fall prey to the entailment of behavioral determinism. If this occurs, it robs the ethic of doing any real work. Instead of proscribing correct and incorrect action, or allowing those considering the situation and activity to meaningfully assign praise or blame, the naive naturalist ethic functions only as a psychological thesis: that one will behave according to whatever psychological or mechanical program (...) one is informed by.The question of this paper was whether Aristotle's system falls prey to such a difficulty given his reliance on the individual's established character as one of the bases upon which ethical decisions are made. (shrink)

About one third of patients with epilepsy have seizures refractory to the medical treatment. Electrical stimulation mapping is the gold standard for the identification of “eloquent” areas prior to resection of epileptogenic tissue. However, it is time-consuming and may cause undesired side effects. Broadband gamma activity recorded with extraoperative electrocorticography during cognitive tasks may be an alternative to ESM but until now has not proven of definitive clinical value. Considering their role in cognition, the alpha and beta bands could further (...) improve the identification of eloquent cortex. We compared gamma, alpha and beta activity, and their combinations for the identification of eloquent cortical areas defined by ESM. Ten patients with intractable focal epilepsy participated in a delayed-match-to-sample task, where syllable sounds were compared to visually presented letters. We used a generalized linear model approach to find the optimal weighting of each band for predicting ESM-defined categories and estimated the diagnostic ability by calculating the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. Gamma activity increased more in eloquent than in non-eloquent areas, whereas alpha and beta power decreased more in eloquent areas. Diagnostic ability of each band was close to 0.7 for all bands but depended on multiple factors including the time period of the cognitive task, the location of the electrodes and the patient’s degree of attention to the stimulus. We show that diagnostic ability can be increased by 3–5% by combining gamma and alpha and by 7.5–11% when gamma and beta were combined. We then show how ECoG power modulation from cognitive testing can be used to map the probability of eloquence in individual patients and how this probability map can be used in clinical settings to optimize ESM planning. We conclude that the combination of gamma and beta power modulation during cognitive testing can contribute to the identification of eloquent areas prior to ESM in patients with refractory focal epilepsy. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to explore the ethical challenges in home mechanical ventilation based on a secondary analysis of qualitative empirical data. The data included perceptions of healthcare professionals in hospitals and community health services and family members of children and adults using home mechanical ventilation. The findings show that a number of ethical challenges, or dilemmas, arise at all levels in the course of treatment: deciding who should be offered home mechanical ventilation, respect for patient and family (...) wishes, quality of life, dignity and equal access to home mechanical ventilation. Other challenges were the impacts home mechanical ventilation had on the patient, the family, the healthcare services and the allocation of resources. A better and broader understanding of these issues is crucial in order to improve the quality of care for both patient and family and assist healthcare professionals involved in home mechanical ventilation to make decisions for the good of the patient and his or her family. (shrink)

The article argues against the commonly held 'green glasses' interpretation of Kant's "a priori", where any one's familiar experience must be seen as integrated by space and time and the categories. Such an interpretation does not answer Hume's problem, Which was whether any necessary connection could be found in experience. For the connections of familiar experience are customary and contingent. Passages from Kant are cited to show that he meant by 'objective experience', not familiar experience, but that body of scientific (...) observation which has been connected according to law. The "a priori" turns out to be what the scientist finds necessary for the possibility of such a connected experience. (shrink)

In this article, the author focuses on the allocation of decision-making authority between parents and physicians. She argues that parents should have substantial room to decide whether genetic testing is good for their child and that they may appropriately consider interests in addition to those of their child in making such choices. A physician, however, may refuse to act pursuant to parental views about testing, when in the physician's view, the parents' choices would pose a risk of significant harm to (...) the child. The balance of control between parents and physicians is illustrated by discussion of a series of case vignettes. Refusal to perform requested testing is most often warranted for testing for carrier status and for genetic predisposition to late onset disease. The author concludes her analysis by discussing why it is appropriate to give increasing deference to the views of the child as the child grows older. (shrink)

A recent addition to the growing corpus of Frege literature is Reinhardt Grossmann's metaphysical study of Frege's philosophical theories. Grossmann approaches Frege as a metaphysician whose philosophical concern centers around four main problems: the nature of logic, the analysis of various kinds of propositions, identity and truth. He has a genetic view of Frege's answers to these problems, and this is reflected in the arrangement and content of the chapters. In chapter I, Grossmann considers Frege's introduction of these problems in (...) the Begriffsschrift and his initial attempt at solutions in terms of the distinctions between thinking and judging, sentence and content, concept and object, function and argument. Grossmann here diagnoses Frege's alleged failure to recognize states of affairs as the fundamental shortcoming of these early views. (shrink)