Mortgaging the future: Dumping ethics with nuclear waste

On August 22, 2005 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued proposed new regulations for radiation releases from the planned permanent U.S. nuclear-waste repository in Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The goal of the new standards is to provide public-health protection for the next million years — even though everyone admits that the radioactive wastes will leak. Regulations now guarantee individual and equal protection against all radiation exposures above the legal limit. Instead E.P.A. recommended different radiation exposure-limits for different time periods. It also recommended using only the arithmetic mean of the dose distribution, to assess regulatory compliance during one time period, but using only the median dose to assess compliance during another period. This piece argues that these two changes — in exposure-limits and in methods of assessing regulatory compliance — have at least four disturbing consequences. The changes would threaten equal protection, ignore the needs of the most vulnerable, allow many fatal exposures, and sanction scientifically flawed dose calculations.     

Expect the Best and Prepare for the Worst: Anticipatory Coping and Preparations for Y2K

The Y2K Bug, the programming glitch expected to derail computerized systems worldwide when the year changed from 1999 to 2000, provided a rich context for examining anticipatory coping and preparatory behaviors. In the last 2 months of 1999, 697 respondents completed an online survey of proactivity, worry about Y2K, dispositional optimism, primary and secondary control-oriented coping efforts, estimates of Y2K-related disruptions, and household preparations. Higher levels of proactivity, worry, and optimism were independently associated with greater self-reported preparations. These predictors were positively associated with greater primary control-oriented coping efforts, but showed differential relations to secondary control efforts, such as accepting the situation or trusting a higher power, especially among participants who thought the damage would be severe and lasting. Implications for understanding multiple ways of coping with potential stressors are discussed.

Time ordering in frontal lobe patients: a stochastic model approach

Frontal lobe patients reproduced a sequence of capital letters or abstract shapes. Immediate and delayed reproduction trials allowed the analysis of short- and long-term memory for time order by means of suitable Markov chain stochastic models. Patients were as proficient as healthy subjects on the immediate reproduction trial, thus showing spared encoding and short-term memory. They failed, instead, on the delayed trials with capital letters, but not with random shapes, suggesting that their long-term memory impairment did not depend on primary deficits for ordering, but on inability to benefit from the organisational strategies that improve the retention and retrieval in normal subjects.     

AIDR 技术在优化婴幼儿胸部 CT 扫描方案中的应用价值

该研究是探讨自适应迭代剂量降低重建技术（adaptive iterative dose reduction ,AIDR）在婴幼儿胸部 CT 扫描中的应用。本研究从拟行胸部 CT 检查的患儿中随机选取40例,分成 A 与 B 两组,A 组管电压为80kV ,用 AIDR 重建技术;B组为100kV ,用滤过反投影重建技术（FBP）。比较 A 、B 两组 CT 值、标准差（SD）、信噪比（SNR）、对比信噪比（CNR）、CT容积剂量指数（CTDIvol）、剂量长度乘积（DLP）及辐射剂量。该研究所得到的 A 、B 两组的图像质量评分、CT 值、SD 、SNR 、CNR 差异均无统计学意义。 A 组较 B 组辐射剂量降低。所以本研究认为在婴幼儿胸部扫描中采用80kV 加 ADIR重建,图像质量能达到诊断要求,且可降低辐射剂量。     

定量组织速度成像评价酒精性心肌损害左室功能的价值

为了评估定量组织速度成像(QTVI)在评价大量饮酒后心肌损害左室功能改变方面的价值,我们对饮酒量符合酒精性心肌病诊断标准患者21例(B组,每日饮白酒≥150g或啤酒4瓶,每周6天~7天,10年以上),30例健康志愿者(A组,正常对照组)进行常规超声参数及QTVI参数测定,包括:二尖瓣环收缩期峰值速度(Vs)、舒张早期运动速度(Ve)、舒张晚期运动速度(Va)等。结果显示,B组常规各超声参数与A组比较差异有显著性统计学意义(P0.01)。QTVI参数与A组比较Va减低(P0.05),Vs、Ve、Ve/Va显著减低(P0.01)。提示QTVI技术能够有效地评估酒精性心肌损害病左室功能的改变。     

Interactions of space and language: Insights from the neglect syndrome

The current article speculates about the interrelations between space and language from the perspective of the neglect syndrome. Various conflicting findings are reviewed and the effect of cultural factors is strongly emphasised. Current scientific literature describes relationships between space and language; however, the available data render it difficult to conclude whether it is the primacy of spatial representations or the complex two‐way interaction between linguistic and spatial representations that determines the nature of cognitive processing. It is hoped that studying the neglect syndrome will provide a solution to this problem. Finally, directions for future research are provided that requires bridging the gap between cognitive theorising and neuroscientific approaches.     

Aquinas's Opposition to Killing the Innocent and its Distinctiveness within the Christian just War Tradition

This essay argues that Aquinas's position regarding the killing of innocent people differs significantly from other representatives of the Christian just war tradition. While his predecessors, notably Augustine, as well as his successors, from Cajetan and Vitoria onward, affirm the legitimacy of causing the death of innocents in a just war in cases of necessity, Aquinas holds that causing the death of innocents in a foreseeable manner, whether intentionally or indirectly, is never justified. Even an otherwise legitimate act of just war cannot legitimate causing the death of innocent people, as this can never advance the common good. This stance also contrasts sharply with much modern and contemporary double effect theorizing in relation to jus in bello. In this regard, Aquinas's position, shaped decisively by his biblical and theological commitments, may point the way towards an ethical orientation beyond the typical divisions of “pacifism” and “just war.”     

Cities and the real world

It is generally recognized that modern cities pose many problems for their inhabitants and contribute to environmental damage. However, neither planners nor scientists give adequate consideration to cities’ place in the evolutionary process and the planet's ecological system. By recognizing these connections and natural laws, planning would become more realistic, and meaningful progress could be made in solving serious social and environmental problems. Some basic problems influencing urban form are discussed, and a schematic example of how we might approach the planning of urban settlements is presented.