scholarly journals Negative Utility Monsters

Utilitas ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Richard Yetter Chappell
Keyword(s):  
Ordinary People ◽  
Upper Limit ◽  
Baseline Status

Abstract Many consider Nozick's “utility monster” – a being more efficient than ordinary people at converting resources into wellbeing, with no upper limit – to constitute a damning counterexample to utilitarianism. But our intuitions may be reversed by considering a variation in which the utility monster starts from a baseline status of massive suffering. This suggests a rethinking of the force of the original objection.

Graves'-Basedow disease in pregnancy

2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (03) ◽  
pp. 106-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. L. Andersen ◽  
P. Laurberg
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Birth Defects ◽  
Thyroid Dysfunction ◽  
National Study ◽  
Antithyroid Drugs ◽  
Upper Limit ◽  
Special Concern ◽  
Maternal Thyroid ◽  
Toxic Reactions ◽  
Serum Tsh

SummaryThyroid hormones are essential development factors and maternal thyroid dysfunction may cause pregnancy complications and diseases in the fetus/child. In the present review we discuss new data on the incidence of Graves'-Basedow disease (GBD) in and around pregnancy, and how hyperthyroidism may affect the risk of spontaneous abortion and stillbirth.A special concern in pregnant women is the potential side effects from the use of antithyroid drugs (ATDs). One type of side effects is the allergic/toxic reactions to the drugs, which seem to be similar in and outside pregnancy, and another is that ATDs tend to over treat the fetus when the mother with GBD is made euthyroid. To avoid fetal hypothyroidism, the lowest possible ATD dose should be used to keep maternal thyroid function at the upper limit of normality with low serum TSH. Birth defects after the use of methimazole (MMI) (or its prodrug carbimazole) have been considered to be very rare, and no risk has previously been associated with the use of propylthiouracil (PTU). However, a recent Danish national study found that 1/30 of children exposed to MMI in early pregnancy had birth defects associated with this, and many defects were severe. PTU exposure was associated with defects in 1/40, and these defects were less severe. Proposals are given on how to reduce the risk of ATD associated birth defects.

Quantitative Radioisotope Measurement of Duodenogastric Reflux in Patients with Ulcer or Gastrectomized for Ulcer

1985 ◽  
Vol 24 (03) ◽  
pp. 107-110
Author(s):  
M. Pääkkönen ◽  
S. Aukee ◽  
K. Korhonen ◽  
A. Pääkkönen ◽  
E. Länsimies ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gamma Camera ◽  
Background Activity ◽  
Bile Reflux ◽  
Duodenogastric Reflux ◽  
Upper Limit ◽  
Visual Evidence ◽  
Biochemical Measurement

SummaryIn this work the duodenogastric reflux was quantified as the amount of radioactivity entering the stomach after an i.v. administration of 99mmTc-HIDA in ulcer patients and in patients who had undergone BI gastrectomy. The results were compared with visual evidence of gastric activity in the gamma camera images and biochemical determination of gastric bile reflux. The method is useful in quantifying the reflux if the activity is above the background activity. It allows the determination of an upper limit for the reflux when the reflux is evident visually. Only two or three images are needed for the quantitation. No correlation was found between biochemical measurement of fasting bile reflux in the stomach and radioisotopic quantification.

Vitamin-A-Exzess durch Pferdefleischprodukte mit hohen Leberanteilen

2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (01) ◽  
pp. 31-36
Author(s):  
E. Kienzle ◽  
N. Becker
Keyword(s):  
Vitamin A ◽  
Eine Analyse ◽  
Upper Limit ◽  
Upper Limits

ZusammenfassungIm Rahmen einer Eliminationsdiät wird regelmäßig Pferdefleisch eingesetzt. Aus Gründen der Praktikabilität verwenden Tierbesitzer häufig kommerziell erhältliches Pferdefleisch aus der Dose. Aufgrund eines Berichts von Zervikalspondylosen bei einer auf Futtermittel allergischen Katze erfolgte eine Analyse verschiedener auf Pferdefleisch basierender Produkte hinsichtlich des Vitamin-AGehalts.In 14 Pferdefleischerzeugnissen wurde der Vitamin-A-Gehalt (Retinol) analysiert. Der Gehalt an umsetzbarer Energie wurde mithilfe von Schätzformeln auf Basis der Deklaration berechnet.In Produkten mit deklarierten Anteilen von Leber, Innereien oder tierischen Nebenprodukten konnten zum Teil erhebliche Vitamin-A-Gehalte festgestellt werden. Bei alleiniger Verfütterung eines dieser Produkte (Deckung des durchschnittlichen Energiebedarfs) würde die Vitamin-A-Versorgung nur knapp unter dem Safe Upper Limit der Katze sowie oberhalb des Safe Upper Limits beim Hund liegen.Bei All-Meat-Produkten sollte nicht nur die Deklaration, sondern auch der Inhalt näher betrachtet werden, um einen Hinweis auf eventuell hohe Leberanteile zu erhalten.Aufgrund der Ergebnisse ist eine exzessive Vitamin-A-Aufnahme bei langfristiger Verfütterung von Pferdefleischprodukten mit hohen Leberanteilen nicht auszuschließen.

An International Collaborative Study to Investigate Standardisation of Hirudin Potency

1993 ◽  
Vol 69 (05) ◽  
pp. 430-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Longstaff ◽  
Man-Yu Wong ◽  
Patrick J Gaffney
Keyword(s):  
Specific Activity ◽  
Collaborative Study ◽  
Residual Activity ◽  
Quality Standard ◽  
Upper Limit ◽  
Assay Procedure ◽  
Specific Activities ◽  
International Collaborative ◽  
Range Of Values ◽  
International Collaborative Study

SummaryAn international collaborative study has been carried out to investigate the reproducibility of hirudin assays in 13 laboratories using four recombinant hirudins and one natural, sulphated product. A simple assay procedure was proposed involving the titration of α-thrombin with inhibitor and measurement of residual activity using a chromogenic substrate. A standard α-thrombin preparation was supplied to ensure that this reagent was of uniform quality throughout the study. The method appeared to present no difficulties and laboratories reported similar potencies for the 5 hirudin samples, in line with expected values. This gave 200–222 Thrombin Inhibitory Units/ampoule (TIU/ampoule) of lyophilised hirudin, with geometric coefficient of variation (gcv) values ranging from 10.15–15.97%. This corresponds to specific activities of approximately 14,300–15,900 TIU/mg protein. This is close to the upper limit of previously reported values of specific activity. We conclude that the precision of this determination compared with the wider range of values in the literature (8,000–16,000 thrombin inhibitory units [TIU]/mg) results from the use of good quality standard α-thrombin by all laboratories. This study has important implications for hirudin standardisation.

Is economic inequality a universal evil?

2019 ◽  
pp. 91-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rostislav I. Kapeliushnikov
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Data ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
The State ◽  
Fair Play ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
The Public ◽  
Discursive Power ◽  
A Current

Using published estimates of inequality for two countries (Russia and USA) the paper demonstrates that inequality measuring still remains in the state of “statistical cacophony”. Under this condition, it seems at least untimely to pass categorical normative judgments and offer radical political advice for governments. Moreover, the mere practice to draw normative conclusions from quantitative data is ethically invalid since ordinary people (non-intellectuals) tend to evaluate wealth and incomes as admissible or inadmissible not on the basis of their size but basing on whether they were obtained under observance or violations of the rules of “fair play”. The paper concludes that a current large-scale ideological campaign of “struggle against inequality” has been unleashed by left-wing intellectuals in order to strengthen even more their discursive power over the public.

Multiple-source Record Linkage in a Rural Industrial Community, 1680–1820

1994 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 133-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve King
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Life Cycles ◽  
Multiple Source ◽  
Demographic Analysis ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Industrial Community ◽  
The Social ◽  
Broad Outline

Re-creating the social, economic and demographic life-cycles of ordinary people is one way in which historians might engage with the complex continuities and changes which underlay the development of early modern communities. Little, however, has been written on the ways in which historians might deploy computers, rather than card indexes, to the task of identifying such life cycles from the jumble of the sources generated by local and national administration. This article suggests that multiple-source linkage is central to historical and demographic analysis, and reviews, in broad outline, some of the procedures adopted in a study which aims at large scale life cycle reconstruction.

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