(2) The following: (i) The research presents a reasonable opportunity to further the understanding, prevention, or alleviation of a serious problem affecting the health or welfare of pregnant women, fetuses or neonates; (ii) The research will be conducted in accord with sound ethical principles; and (iii) Informed consent will be obtained in accord with the informed consent provisions of subpar...

Estimating the structure of physical flow networks such as power grids is critical to secure delivery energy. This paper discusses statistical estimation in under-excited regime, where a subset internal nodes have zero injection fluctuations. Prior algorithms based on nodal voltages fail for voltage covariance matrix not invertible. We propose novel topology learning algorithm general networks....

Abstract Aiming at the problem that progressively optimized Rapidly-exploring Random Trees Star (RRT*) algorithm generates a large number of redundant nodes, which causes slow convergence and low search efficiency in high-dimensional complex environments. In this paper we present Target-biased Informed (TBIT*), an improved RRT* path planning based on target-biased sampling strategy heuristic op...

Recently, several studies have looked into the problem of replicated server placement on the Internet. Some of those studies have demonstrated that there exists a replica placement algorithm that can perform within a factor of 1.1{1.5 of the optimal solution. However, this particular greedy algorithm requires detailed knowledge about network topology, and knowledge about expected client locatio...

In broadcasting, information originally held in one node of a communication network (called the source) has to be transmitted to a11 other nodes. In a unit of time, every node which already got the source message can transmit it to one neighbor. In classical broadcasting, the choice of neighbors to be informed by a node and the order in which they are informed may depend on the source. Thus, no...

421 Medical practitioners are beginning to realise that conflict between medical paternalism and patient autonomy would arise if they continue to uphold this dualism as distinct in all circumstances of medical practice. Information about an intended medical procedure or clinical research involving humans needs to be comprehensively transmitted so that the client can make a rational decision to ...

In this article we provide an in-depth description of a new model of informed consent called 'meta consent' and consider its practical implementation. We explore justifications for preferring meta consent over alternative models of consent as a solution to the problem of secondary use of health data for research. We finally argue that meta consent strikes an appropriate balance between enabling...

It is now widely accepted that clinicians should negotiate rather than dictate what is in the best interests of patients.

INTRODUCTION The doctor's decision whether to save the life of a minor who has attempted to commit suicide depends on the decision of the person who, under legal regulations, is responsible for the minor. In everyday medical practice doctors are often placed in difficult situations and often cannot make any decision. Such doubts arise when it is impossible to contact the person(s) responsible f...

Epilepsy can define who one is rather than the diagnosis one has. It may be considered under the rubric of disability with legislative protection against discrimination. Those seeking remedy should investigate alternative dispute resolution in preference to litigation. Many areas of the life of a person with epilepsy deserve examination when considering epilepsy and law. Just some of these incl...