Contemporary Biomedical Engineering Perspective on Volitional Evolution for Human Radiotolerance Enhancement Beyond Low-Earth Orbit

A primary objective of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is expansion of humankind’s presence outside low-Earth orbit, culminating in permanent interplanetary travel and habitation. Having no inherent means of physiological detection or protection against ionizing radiation, humans incur capricious risk when journeying beyond low-Earth orbit for long periods. NASA has made large investments to analyze pathologies from space radiation exposure, emphasizing the importance of characterizing radiation’s physiological effects. Because natural evolution would require many generations to confer resistance against space radiation, immediately pragmatic approaches should be considered. Volitional evolution, defined as humans steering their own heredity, may inevitably retrofit the genome to mitigate resultant pathologies from space radiation exposure. Recently, uniquely radioprotective genes have been identified, conferring local or systemic radiotolerance when overexpressed in vitro and in vivo. Aiding in this process, the CRISPR/Cas9 technique is an inexpensive and reproducible instrument capable of making limited additions and deletions to the genome. Although cohorts can be identified and engineered to protect against radiation, alternative and supplemental strategies should be seriously considered. Advanced propulsion and mild synthetic torpor are perhaps the most likely to be integrated. Interfacing artificial intelligence with genetic engineering using predefined boundary conditions may enable the computational modeling of otherwise overly complex biological networks. The ethical context and boundaries of introducing genetically pioneered humans are considered.

Exploring the Ethical Constructs of Dental Patients to Guide Dental Ethics Teaching

BackgroundDental ethics as a construct is mostly developed based on the ethics theory and experiences of professionals. Dental patients, as a stakeholder can guide us about their ethical constructs thereby curriculum developer can contextualize ethics to the local needs. The purpose of this study is to explore the ethical constructs of dental patients to guide dental ethical teaching. MethodsA grounded theory approach, inspired by the socio-constructivist paradigm was used for data collection. The duration of the study was six months and non-probability, purposive, convenience, theoretical sampling was used. Dental patients visiting the various department of dental colleges in Lahore, Pakistan were interviewed to explore their ethical constructs and thematic analysis was done. ResultsNineteen dental patients were interviewed. Three themes were derived from four hundred and sixty-two codes. Three themes were: dental patient ethical constructs, dental ethics teaching, and ethical context. Under these themes, honesty, good communication ethics and respect for patients were the main ethical constructs of dental patients. Dental patient also emphasized effective ethics teaching and assessment. Finally, for the dental patient, religion and economic condition were two main contextual factors effecting ethical construct. ConclusionDental patient desire honesty, good communication ethics, and respect for patient from dental students. The patient defined ethical context and ethical constructs may help curriculum developer to contextualize and emphasize dental ethics teaching. Religion and the financial aspect are the two contextual factors effecting ethical construct that play key roles.

Ethical context of legally regulated surrogate and genetic motherhood in Russia

Aim: to assess the compliance of legal norms regulating surrogate motherhood and moral concepts about motherhood and childhood in society.Materials and Methods. The Articles 55 (clause 9) of the Federal Law "On the Fundamentals of Health Protection of Citizens in the Russian Federation", the principles of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, and traditional moral concepts common in society of the Russian Federation underwent a comparative analysis.Results. Discrepancies between moral and legal norms were revealed in 3 issues. Issue 1 is related to the rights for surrogacy of unmarried persons and the rights of single citizens. In an ethical context, the statement of their rights does not correspond to the rights of children to a dignified upbringing in a family composed of a mother and father. Issue 2 refers to the ethical incorrectness of compensated surrogacy contracts. Commercial surrogacy cannot be separated from transformed forms of child trafficking. Issue 3 is related to the moral degradation of motherhood upon using technologies of surrogate and genetic motherhood.Conclusion. It is necessary to conduct additional studies on using surrogate motherhood in order to prevent abuse and violations upon its application in Russia as well as open up a public discussion on this matter.

Attitude of Physicians and Patients towards Pharmaceutical Promotion in Healthcare: A Qualitative Study from Ethical Context

Pharmaceutical marketers generally target physicians as their customers and patients as their consumers. Pharmaceutical promotion influence physicians significantly to prescribe branded medicines within limited norms. Patients are also influenced by pharmaceutical promotional activities within regulatory bindings. The purpose of this study was to determine the attitude of physicians and patients towards pharmaceutical promotion from an ethical context. The study was carried out by qualitative content analysis. Face to face interview method was applied to collect data from six physicians and six patients in the metropolitan area of Malaysia using the judgmental sampling technique. The interviews data were transcribed and analyzed systematically using Nvivo software. The findings revealed that Physicians have a positive attitude towards pharmaceutical promotion as it fulfils their need and professional knowledge. Alternatively, patients have positive as well as negative attitude and mindset towards pharmaceutical promotion. This study will help medical regulatory policymakers to better understand physicians’ ethical dilemma with pharmaceutical marketers and patients’ perception of aggressive promotional tools. It will also help the policymakers to govern further proceedings by increasing ethical practices for better healthcare.

The enigma of health: cultural, health political, and philosophical aspects

Ethics, at its core, relates to our practices and their moral justification. The practice of medicine, by definition, takes place in a fundamentally ethical context. In ordinary circumstances the goals to which physicians direct their medical practices are held tacitly, but sometimes fresh examination of these is occasioned. This conceptual article considers a range of approaches that have been taken to the notion of health, ancient and modern, historical and contemporary, beginning with the socio-cultural, then the health political, and finally the medical philosophical. Although these are contrasting perspectives, each are bound up with questions of values and of the relation between the objective and subjective. The contrast is discussed between the idea of health as a positive and dynamic condition in terms of functional ability, and characterisations of health as purely the absence of disease. Finally, a typology of theories of health is proposed along ontological and epistemological lines.

THE NATURE OF THE ECONOMIC PROCESS

Background. Today there are questions that need to be answered, namely: what is the "uncertainty" in the discourse of economic theory and how to take it into account in our economic strategies and processes; how moral and ethical norms can affect our understanding and practice of formation and implementation of economic processes. Analysis of recent researches and publications. The studies of D. North, F. Knight, I. Prigozhin, and E. Laslo are devoted to the problem of uncertainty of economic processes, in which uncertainty is considered in the ontological aspect. Fundamental studies of moral and ethical norms of economic development were carried out by S. Bowles, J. Rawls and A. Sen etс. The aim of the article is to clarify the causal and axiological contexts of the economic process. Materials and methods. The works of native and foreign specialists were the materials of the research. General scientific research methods such as historical, analysis, synthesis and abstraction have been used in the article. Results. Uncertainty is inherent in a market economy and its processes. It is argued that the economic process is nonlinear, its outcome is probabilistic, and may be uncertain. Human economic behaviour is mainly determined by institutions, especially within the economic process. It is proved that there is an organic connection between neoclassical and behavioural theoretical concepts of human economic behaviour. The difference in appro­aches lies in the levels of generalization of the object and subject of research. The moral and ethical context of the economic process can be taken into account in the models of the economic process, but only as an imperative of "economic justice". The algorithm of finding a "fair solution" involves the approximation of the state of coordination of interests to equilibrium. Conclusion. It is necessary to continue researching the problems of causality of the economic process, which will contribute to the validity of forecasts. The moral and ethical context of the economic process requires expansion of the concept of its effectiveness and the development of modeling methods. Keywords: economic process, evolution, intentionality, uncertainty, institutions, economic behaviour, moral and ethical content, justice.

The Normative-Ethical Context of the Golden Rule

According tocommonunderstanding, the Golden Rule exists in a form of maxims and various proverbs. However, in many cultural traditions, this rule is present as part of institutionalized texts and has a specific normative context. The article proposes an account of the Golden Rule within a particular example of the Judeo-Christian tradition (based on a study of the Bible books), in relation to the Lex Talionis and the Commandment of Love, in respect to what the Golden Rule is contextualized, in three stages. Firstly, the main passages, in which these principles are compared and contrasted have been selected in the books of the Bible. Such are the following: Lev. 19.18, 33–34, Matt. 6.37–38; 7.12; 22.40. Secondly, it has been taken into account that the normative content of these principles, although they are expressed in strict formulations, is internally dynamic. When clarifying both the normative context of the Golden Rule and the content of each of the principles, it is necessary to take into account their internal normative dynamism. Thus, Talion, which historically arose as a principle of retribution, limiting the amount of punishment to the degree of harm caused, eventually transformed into a principle of compensation, primarily monetary, and in a later era, early Christian authors reinterpreted it as a principle that admonishes against causing harm to anyone. The Commandment of Love for one’s neighbor covers the spectrum of demands from love for one’s neighbor as a close one through love for one’s neighbor, who is considered a stranger, to love for a neighbor, who is actually a foe. The normative dynamics of the Golden Rule can be traced in its two formulas – negative and positive. At the same time, it is necessary to take into account the examples of thinking in the spirit of the Golden Rule, which are found in the oldest Bible books. Thirdly, the three principles are compared in their imperative characteristics by a number of parameters, regarding which similarities and differences between them are presented in different configurations.

Why is agricultural animal welfare important? The social and ethical context.

This chapter describes the different concepts of animal welfare, welfare problems caused by a loss of animal husbandry principles, production diseases and pathologies, the importance of the animal's innate nature and the welfare and ethical issues that animal scientists and veterinarians must address.