A total of 944 expressed sequence tags generated 2212 EST loci mapped to homoeologous group 1 chromosomes in hexaploid wheat. EST deletion maps and the consensus map of group 1 chromosomes were constructed to show EST distribution. EST loci were unevenly distributed among chromosomes 1A, 1B, and ID with 660, 826, and 726, respectively. The number of EST loci was greater on the long arms than on the short arms for all three chromosomes. The distribution of ESTs along chromosome arms (...) was nonrandom with EST clusters occurring in the distal regions of short arms and middle regions of long arms. Duplications of group 1 ESTs in other homoeologous groups occurred at a rate of 35.5%. Seventy-five percent of wheat chromosome 1 ESTs had significant matches with rice sequences, where large regions of conservation occurred between wheat consensus chromosome 1 and rice chromosome 5 and between the proximal portion of the long arm of wheat consensus chromosome 1 and rice chromosome 10. Only 9.5% of group 1 ESTs showed significant matches to Arabidopsis genome sequences. The results presented are useful for gene mapping and evolutionary and comparative genomics of grasses. (shrink)

A total of 1918 loci, detected by the hybridization of 938 expressed sequence tag unigenes from 26 Triticeae cDNA libraries, were mapped to wheat homoeologous group 4 chromosomes using a set of deletion, ditelosomic, and nulli-tetrasomic lines. The 1918 EST loci were not distributed uniformly among the three group 4 chromosomes; 41, 28, and 31% mapped to chromosomes 4A, 4B, and 4D, respectively. This pattern is in contrast to the cumulative results of EST mapping in all homoeologous groups, as reported (...) elsewhere, that found the highest proportion of loci mapped to the B genome. Sixty-five percent of these 1918 loci mapped to the long arms of homoeologous group 4 chromosomes, while 35% mapped to the short arms. The distal regions of chromosome arms showed higher numbers of loci than the proximal regions, with the exception of 4DL. This study confirmed the complex structure of chromosome 4A that contains two reciprocal translocations and two inversions, previously identified. An additional inversion in the centromeric region of 4A was revealed. A consensus map for homoeologous group 4 was developed from 119 ESTs unique to group 4. Forty-nine percent of these ESTs were found to be homoologous to sequences on rice chromosome 3, 12% had matches with sequences on other rice chromosomes, and 39% had no matches with rice sequences at all. Limited homology was found between wheat ESTs on homoeologous group 4 and the Arabidopsis genome. Forty-two percent of the homoeologous group 4 ESTs could be classified into functional categories on the basis of blastX searches against all protein databases. (shrink)

This report describes the rationale, approaches, organization, and resource development leading to a large-scale deletion bin map of the hexaploid wheat genome. Accompanying reports in this issue detail results from chromosome bin-mapping of expressed sequence tags representing genes onto the seven homoeologous chromosome groups and a global analysis of the entire mapped wheat EST data set. Among the resources developed were the first extensive public wheat EST collection. Described are protocols for sequencing, sequence processing, EST nomenclature, and the assembly of (...) ESTs into contigs. These contigs plus singletons were used for selection of distinct sequence motif unigenes. Selected ESTs were rearrayed, validated by 5′ and 3′ sequencing, and amplified for probing a series of wheat aneuploid and deletion stocks. Images and data for all Southern hybridizations were deposited in databases and were used by the coordinators for each of the seven homoeologous chromosome groups to validate the mapping results. Results from this project have established the foundation for future developments in wheat genomics. (shrink)

Modern dönemde iletişim ve ulaşımda teknolojinin gelişmesiyle birlikte dünya küçük bir köy haline gelmiştir. Bu dönemde Batı sistemi maneviyatı ve ahireti bırakıp maddiyat ve dünya için belli araç ve gereçleri üreterek modern medya alanına egemen olma gücünü elde etmiştir. Bu durum özellikle İslam’a saldıran söylemlerin tırmanması, dini gruplara saldırıların artması ve İslami içeriklerle savaşın büyümesiyle birlikte İslami medyayla uğraşanların hitap önceliklerini tekrar gözden geçirmelerini gerekli kılmıştır. Aslında bu meydan okumalar İslam medyasının daha önce sıkıntısını yaşadığı ve halen de devam eden (...) sorunlara dayanmaktadır. Medya alanında çalışılabilecek çok sayıda konu bulunmaktadır. Bunlar arasında en az tercih edilen konu ise makâsıd ya da evleviyyât bakış açısı ve makâsıd ictihâdı çerçevesinde medyaya bakma konusudur. Bu çalışmada bu konu araştırma konusu olarak seçilmiştir. Bu konunun seçimi, birtakım varsayımlara dayanmaktadır. En önemlisi de makâsıd ilminin ölçü olması ve evleviyyât fıkhıdır. Bu ölçü genel olarak medya ilminin öncüleri ve özel olarak da İslami medyanın öncüleri için makâsıd bakışını sunabilen bilişsel teorilerin ve yöntemsel imkânların amaçladığı önemli niteliklerden biridir. Böylece makalenin sorusu şu şekilde ifade edilebilir: Ümmetin kalkınmasını, liderliğini ve diğer milletler üzerindeki etkisini gerçekleştirmek amacıyla makasıdü’ş-şerî‘aya dayalı öncelikler fıkhının kuralları, çağdaş medya alanına nasıl uygulanabilir? Bu çalışma iki bölümde ele alınmıştır. Birinci bölümde medya alanındaki öncelikler fıkhı kavramı ve bu alandaki bu fıkhı dikkate almanın delilleri ele alınmıştır. İkinci bölümde öncelikler fıkhının kurallarını modern medya alanına tatbik etme konusu ele alınmıştır. Ayrıca makâsıd kuralları, nevazil fıkhının kuralları ve vesail kuralları olan üç kural çeşidine göre her bir mertebe için örnekler verilmiştir. Bu düşünceyi temellendirmenin birçok yönü bulunmaktadır. Fakat bu konu iki yönden ele alınmıştır. Birincisi medya yönündür. Burada öncelikleri modern medya ilminde düzenleme teorisi ele alınmıştır. İkincisi makâsıd yönüdür. Burada makâsıdü’ş-şeri‘a ilmine dayanan önceliklerin kuralları ele alınmıştır. Bu çalışmada biraz karşılaştırma yöntemi kullanmanın yanı sıra genel olarak niteleme, tahlil ve istinbât yöntemleri kullanılmıştır. Bu çalışma neticesinde makâsıd ilmini medya alanıyla ilgili ictihâdî bakışta işletmenin zaruri olduğuna ve bunun bilimsel bir lüks olmayıp zorunlu olduğu sonucuna varılmıştır. Ayrıca modern İslami düşünce medyasının genel olarak makâsıdü’ş-şeri‘a ölçüleri ve özel olarak da hitap ve medya makâsıdının ölçüleriyle yönlendirmesi gerektiği sonucu elde edilmiştir. Medyanın yakın, orta ve uzak stratejilerini geliştirerek evleviyyât fıkhını işler hale getirmenin zorunlu olduğunu öneriyoruz. Ayrıca medya ve makâsıdü’ş-şeri‘a alanlarında araştırma yapan ve bu ilimlerle meşgul olanların medyayı makâsıd fıkhıyla çerçeveleme ve medya alanında makâsıdı çalıştırma konusunda ortak ciddi çalışmalar yapmalarını öneriyoruz. (shrink)

The problem of understanding how statistical inference is, and can be, applied in empirical sciences is important for the methodology of science. It is the objective of this paper to gain a better understanding of the role of statistical methods in scientific modeling. The important question of whether the applicability reduces to the representational properties of statistical models is discussed. It will be shown that while the answer to this question is positive, representation in statistical models is not purely structural. (...) In spite of the fact that representation in statistical models is based on the structural similarities between the statistical model and the empirical systems under study, these relationships are shown to be appropriate for representing relations in the target system by agent function, too. A second aspect of the paper involves the claim that agent-based components of statistical modeling are: a) interpretation of random variables, b) selection of the goal of statistical research, and c) selection of estimator properties. To justify these claims, a preliminary discussion will be presented on the role of statistics in modeling, as in regression and other structural models. This role will be explored and realized using a structural viewpoint. Also the role of statistical estimation in statistical modeling is discussed to explain the representational role of models and the inferential role of the agent in modeling. (shrink)

The Groningen protocol allows for the euthanasia of severely ill newborns with a hopeless prognosis and unbearable suffering. We understand the impetus for such a protocol but have moral and ethical concerns with it. Advocates for euthanasia in adults have relied on the concept of human autonomy, which is lacking in the case of infants. In addition, biases can potentially influence the decision making of both parents and physicians. It is also very difficult to weigh the element of quality of (...) life on the will to live. We feel an important line has been crossed if the international medical community consents to the active euthanasia of severely ill infants and are concerned about the extension of the policy to other at risk groups. (shrink)

The validity of the double effect doctrine is examined in euthanasia and abortion. In these two situations killing is a method of treatment. It is argued that the doctrine cannot apply to the care of the dying. Firstly, doctors are obliged to harm patients in order to do good to them. Secondly, patients should make their own value judgments about being mutilated or killed. Thirdly, there is little intuitive moral difference between direct and indirect killing. Nor can the doctrine apply (...) to abortion. Doctors kill fetuses as a means of treating the mother. They also kill them as an inevitable side effect of other treatment. Drawing a moral distinction between the direct and the indirect killing gives counterintuitive results. It is suggested that pragmatic rules, not ethics, govern practices around euthanasia and cause it to be more restricted than abortion. (shrink)

The physician charter on medical professionalism creates standards of ethical behaviour for physicians and has been endorsed by professional organisations worldwide. It is based on the cardinal principles of the primacy of patient welfare, patient autonomy, and social welfare. There has been little discussion in the bioethics community of the doctrine of the charter and none from a Jewish ethical perspective. In this essay the authors discuss the obligations of the charter from a Jewish ethical viewpoint and call on other (...) cultures to develop their own unique perspectives on this important document. (shrink)

This book is a study of the second-edition version of the 'Transcendental Deduction', which is one of the most important and obscure sections of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. By way of a close analysis of the B-Deduction, Adam Dickerson makes the distinctive claim that the Deduction is crucially concerned with the problem of making intelligible the unity possessed by complex representations - a problem that is the representationalist parallel of the semantic problem of the unity of the proposition. Along (...) the way he discusses most of the key themes in Kant's theory of knowledge, including the nature of thought and representation, the notion of objectivity, and the way in which the mind structures our experience of the world. (shrink)

An argument is a conceptual instrument through which a certain logical f order between propositions can be seen to exist. But does an argument show that a proposition is true? It does, if by ‘that’ you mean that the proposition can be seen to follow through the instrument of a valid argument which employs true premises. But when we wonder whether to believe that a proposition is true we do not always wonder whether or not the proposition follows logically from (...) other propositions. We want to know f whether the proposition is in itself true, whether or not it follows from another proposition or series of propositions. That a proposition is true f may be a fact, whether or not the machinery of reason has succeeded in focusing our attention on its truth by extracting its truth from other true premises. (shrink)

Aim: Patients with advanced cancer need information about end-of-life treatment options in order to make informed decisions. Clinicians vary in the frequency with which they initiate these discussions.Patients and methods: As part of a long-term longitudinal study, patients with an expected 2-year survival of less than 50% who had advanced gastrointestinal or lung cancer or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis were interviewed. Each patient’s medical record was reviewed at enrollment and at 3 months for evidence of the discussion of patient wishes concerning (...) ventilator support, artificial nutrition and hydration , resuscitation and hospice care. A Kaplan–Meier analysis was also performed and 2-year survival calculated.Results: 60 cancer and 32 ALS patients were enrolled. ALS patients were more likely than cancer patients to have evidence of discussion about their wishes for ventilator support , ANH , DNR and hospice care . At 6 months, 91% of ALS patients were alive compared with 62% of cancer patients; at 2 years, 63% of ALS patients were alive compared with 23% of cancer patients .Conclusions: Cancer patients were less likely than ALS patients to have had documented advanced care planning discussions despite worse survival. This may reflect perceptions that ALS has a more predictable course, that advanced cancer has a greater number of treatment options, or differing views about hope. Nevertheless, cancer patients may be less adequately prepared for end-of-life decision-making. (shrink)

An attempt is made to show that Wittgenstein's later philosophy of logic is not the kind of conventionalism which is often ascribed to him. On the contrary, Wittgenstein gives expression to a “mixed” theory which is not only interesting but tends to resolve the perplexities usually associated with the question of the a priori character of logical truth. I try to show that Wittgenstein is better understood not as denying that there are such things as “logical rules” nor as denying (...) that the results of applying such rules are “logically necessary,” but as trying to understand what it is to appeal to a logical rule and what it means to say that the results of applying such a rule are “necessary.” He is not so much overthrowing standard accounts of logical necessity as discovering the limits of the concept. (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)

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)

There are many people in the world who want to be Somebody. Let us describe someone as Somebody who comes to believe that, in one or more respects, he or she is a special or significant person and who succeeds, through whatever means, in acquiring some sort of reputation and some sort of fame. People want to become Somebody because they believe that unless they succeed in that respect they will turn out to be a mere mediocrity, or worse still, (...) to be thought of as a mere mediocrity. People want to leave some sort of mark in this world before they die. They do not want their passage through this world to be utterly ineffectual. This, I think, is the seed from which the ideal of being Somebody emerges. (shrink)

Some approaches to the assessment of moral intuitions are discussed. The controlled ethical trial isolates a moral issue from confounding factors and thereby clarifies what a person's intuition actually is. Casuistic reasoning from situations, where intuitions are clear, suggests or modifies principles, which can then help to make decisions in situations where intuitions are unclear. When intuitions are defended by a supporting principle, that principle can be tested by finding extreme cases, in which it is counterintuitive to follow the principle. (...) An approach to the resolution of conflict between valid moral principles, specifically the utilitarian and justice principles, is considered. It is argued that even those who justify intuitions by a priori principles are often obliged to modify or support their principles by resort to the consideration of consequences. (shrink)