Who Guards the Guardians? Ian Kennedy, Bioethics and the ‘Ideology of Accountability’ in British Medicine

This article charts the history of bioethics in Britain through the work of the academic lawyer Ian Kennedy. From the late 1970s, Kennedy claimed that external oversight, which he termed ‘bioethics’, was needed to make medicine accountable to patients and the public. I believe these arguments provide a window onto the historical factors that generated the demand for bioethics, and help us determine why it became influential in recent decades. I detail how Kennedy's argument resonated with the Conservative enthusiasm for audit and consumer choice in the 1980s. Contrary to traditional portrayals of bioethics as a critique of medicine, I also show that Kennedy promised it would benefit doctors by improving decision making and maintaining public confidence. This analysis reframes bioethics as an important constituent of the ‘audit society’: fulfilling the neo-liberal demand for oversight and the medical demand for legitimacy

LSST Science Book, Version 2.0

A survey that can cover the sky in optical bands over wide fields to faint magnitudes with a fast cadence will enable many of the exciting science opportunities of the next decade. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will have an effective aperture of 6.7 meters and an imaging camera with field of view of 9.6 deg^2, and will be devoted to a ten-year imaging survey over 20,000 deg^2 south of +15 deg. Each pointing will be imaged 2000 times with fifteen second exposures in six broad bands from 0.35 to 1.1 microns, to a total point-source depth of r~27.5. The LSST Science Book describes the basic parameters of the LSST hardware, software, and observing plans. The book discusses educational and outreach opportunities, then goes on to describe a broad range of science that LSST will revolutionize: mapping the inner and outer Solar System, stellar populations in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, the structure of the Milky Way disk and halo and other objects in the Local Volume, transient and variable objects both at low and high redshift, and the properties of normal and active galaxies at low and high redshift. It then turns to far-field cosmological topics, exploring properties of supernovae to z~1, strong and weak lensing, the large-scale distribution of galaxies and baryon oscillations, and how these different probes may be combined to constrain cosmological models and the physics of dark energy.Comment: 596 pages. Also available at full resolution at http://www.lsst.org/lsst/sciboo

Improving tribological properties of cast Al-Si alloys through application of wear-resistant thermal spray coatings

Flame Spray Thermal Spray coatings are low-cost, high-wear surface-treatment technologies. However, little has been reported on their potential effects on cast automotive aluminum alloys. The aim of this research was to investigate the tribological properties of as-sprayed NiCrBSi and WC/12Co Flame Spray coatings applied to two cast aluminum alloys: high-copper LM24 (AlSi8Cu3Fe), and low-copper LM25 (AlSi7Mg). Potential interactions between the mechanical properties of the substrate and the deposited coatings were deemed to be significant. Microstructural, microhardness, friction, and wear (pin-on-disk, microabrasion, Taber abrasion, etc.) results are reported, and the performance differences between coatings on the different substrates were noted. The coefficient of friction was reduced from 0.69-0.72 to 0.12-0.35. Wear (pin-on-disk) was reduced by a factor of 103-104, which was related to the high surface roughness of the coatings. Microabrasion wear was dependent on coating hardness and applied load. Taber abrasion results showed a strong dependency on the substrate, coating morphology, and homogeneity

Creating the ‘ethics industry': Mary Warnock, in vitro fertilization and the history of bioethics in Britain

Recent decades have seen a shift in the management and discussion of biomedicine. Issues once considered by doctors and scientists are now handled by a diverse array of participants, including philosophers, lawyers, theologians and lay representatives. This new approach, known as ‘bioethics', has become the norm in regulatory committees and public debate. In this article, I argue that bioethics emerged as a valued enterprise in Britain during the 1980s because it fulfilled, and linked, the concerns of several groups. My analysis centres on the moral philosopher Mary Warnock, who chaired a government inquiry into human fertilization and embryology between 1982 and 1984, and became a strong advocate of bioethics. I detail how Warnock's promotion of bioethics tallied with the Conservative government's desire for increased surveillance of hitherto autonomous professions – while fulfilling her own belief that philosophers should engage in public affairs. And I also show that Warnock simultaneously promoted bioethics to doctors and scientists as an essential safeguard against declining political and public trust. This stance, I argue, framed bioethics as a vital intermediary between politics, the public, and biomedicine, and explains the growth and endurance of what the Guardian identified as an ethics industry

The electrochemical deposition of Zn-Mn coating from choline chloride-urea deep eutectic solvent

Electrochemical and microscopic techniques were used for the characterisation of Zn-Mn coatings electrodeposited from choline chloride-urea deep eutectic solvent. Cyclic voltammograms show that there was no discernible Mn reduction peak when only Mn2+ was present in DES solution. The distinct Mn peak developed only upon addition of Zn2+ to the solution, probably due to previous Zn nucleation on the steel substrate. It was found that 22-27 wt-% Mn deposited at current densities of 3-8 mA cm(-2), amounts significantly higher than those obtained from aqueous electrolytes. Since higher deposition current densities resulted in the formation of a porous surface consisting of clusters of nodular crystallites, the optimal deposition c.d was determined to be 3 mA cm(-2)