Does there exist only one, universally valid, research ethic? Are informed consent and ethical committees the best means to ensure the moral correctness of research? Again, what consequences ensue from the introduction of these instruments for the freedom of research and the quality of its results? This article addresses these issues by first recounting an ethnography conducted by its author in...

Because they face a growing nursing shortage, many U.S. health care institutions have turned to recruiting foreign nurses. For foreign nurses, the practice is often an opportunity to make a better life for themselves and their families. And it helps solve a serious problem for the U.S. organizations involved. But the recruitment of foreign nurses raises a number of ethical questions. The first ...

Education is one of the most important elements in our lives because it is a direct way to broaden our knowledge. In order to enhance academic learning experience, an increasing number of instructors are changing their pedagogies to make their students socially active in class participation. In this article, the author describes how the development and implementation of the technology-supported...

A number of reports in the past decade have concluded that the medical education system must be reformed. These reports often call for the incorporation of new technologies into the educational process. One technology that has found its way into the medical educational environment is the personal computer. This essay critically examines the introduction of the personal computer into medical edu...

The psychiatric genetics field is currently undergoing a crisis due to the decades-long failure to uncover the genes believed to cause the major psychiatric disorders. Since 2009, leading researchers have explained these negative results on the basis of the ‘‘missing heritability’’ argument, which holds that more effective research methods must be developed to uncover presumed missing genes. Ac...

Thisresearch paper is dedicated to an actual issue in Latvia and in the whole European Union – development of the secondary materials management. The goal of this paper is to research the development of the secondary materials management in Latvia as a result to point out its main positive aspects and problems. In this research paper the author regards following issues: significance of the seco...

This article supports an approach espoused by Burt Neuborne in Who’s Afraid of the Human Rights Commission. In concurring with Neuborne’s approach that the Commission should focus its resources on discrimination prevention over remedy, this article seeks in Part I to bolster Neuborne’s approach to re-thinking Commission enforcement paradigms. In particular, the author analogizes the human right...

The author summarises the current knowledge of the major immune cytokines, their receptors and functions, and illustrates the pivotal role of cytokines in regulating immune responses. As researchers explore the factors which influence the genetics of disease resistance in livestock and poultry, alleles associated with differences in the expression of, and responsiveness to, cytokines will inevi...

Although the war in Liberia in July 2003 claimed hundreds of lives, the international community was reluctant to intervene. In this article, the author debates the question: does international military intervention equal protection of populations? The role of humanitarian organisations in military intervention is considered. Aid organisations cannot call for deployment of a protection force wit...

The author identifies four conceptualizations of the relation between symptoms and disorders as utilized in diagnostic systems such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 1994): A constructivist perspective, which holds that disorders are conveniently grouped sets of symptoms; a diagnostic perspective, which holds ...