A Unified Account of the Moral Standing to Blame

Recently, philosophers have turned their attention to the question, not when a given agent is blameworthy for what she does, but when a further agent has the moral standing to blame her for what she does. Philosophers have proposed at least four conditions on having “moral standing”: 1. One’s blame would not be “hypocritical”. 2. One is not oneself “involved in” the target agent’s wrongdoing. 3. One must be warranted in believing that the target is indeed blameworthy for the wrongdoing. 4. The target’s wrongdoing must some of “one’s business”. These conditions are often proposed as both conditions on one and the same thing, and as marking fundamentally different ways of “losing standing.” Here I call these claims into question. First, I claim that conditions (3) and (4) are simply conditions on different things than are conditions (1) and (2). Second, I argue that condition (2) reduces to condition (1): when “involvement” removes someone’s standing to blame, it does so only by indicating something further about that agent, viz., that he or she lacks commitment to the values that condemn the wrongdoer’s action. The result: after we clarify the nature of the non-hypocrisy condition, we will have a unified account of moral standing to blame. Issues also discussed: whether standing can ever be regained, the relationship between standing and our "moral fragility", the difference between mere inconsistency and hypocrisy, and whether a condition of standing might be derived from deeper facts about the "equality of persons"

Nonzero-sum Stochastic Games

This paper treats of stochastic games. We focus on nonzero-sum games and provide a detailed survey of selected recent results. In Section 1, we consider stochastic Markov games. A correlation of strategies of the players, involving ``public signals'', is described, and a correlated equilibrium theorem proved recently by Nowak and Raghavan for discounted stochastic games with general state space is presented. We also report an extension of this result to a class of undiscounted stochastic games, satisfying some uniform ergodicity condition. Stopping games are related to stochastic Markov games. In Section 2, we describe a version of Dynkin's game related to observation of a Markov process with random assignment mechanism of states to the players. Some recent contributions of the second author in this area are reported. The paper also contains a brief overview of the theory of nonzero-sum stochastic games and stopping games which is very far from being complete

Thickness patterns of the wool of Polish sheep

Соответствующие исследования касаются разработки эталонов толщины шерсти польских овец. Материал составляла шерсть низинных и длинношерстных овец. Измеряли толщину шерсти и определяли связанные с ней признаками (длину и извитость). Полученные результаты показали, что дифференциация толщины шерсти в пределах номинальных диаметров не зависит от ее происхождения. Наблюдалась различная извитость для данной толщины, что может иметь решающее значение в выборе штапелей на эталонные пробы. Шерсть длинношерстных овец оказалась слишком короткой для данной группы.The respective investigations concern working out thickness patterns of the wool of Polish sheep. The material constituted wool of lowland and long-wooled sheep. Wool thickness and traits connected therewith (length and crimpness) were measured. The results obtained have proved that differentiation in the wool thickness within the nominal diameters does not depend on its origin. Different crimpness for the given thickness was observed, which can be decisive for the choice of staples for the pattern tests. The wool of long-wooled sheep appeared to be too short for this group

Nebulizers or pressurized metered-dose inhalers in the treatment of asthma exacerbations.

The use of inhaled beta2-agonists delivered by a metered-dose inhaler (MDI) with a holding chamber (spacer) actually is considered the best treatment for childhood acute asthma. However, its use in daily practice still seems rather limited. The aim of this study was to investigate, using a questionnaire, the use of a nebulizer or MDI as the first-line method for delivering inhaled beta2-agonists in children with acute asthma. A questionnaire was developed and distributed to 22 pediatric departments and to 131 family pediatricians (FPs) in northeast Italy. We showed that in the hospitals the episodes of acute asthma usually were treated with bronchodilators administered by wet nebulization (95.45\%). This was the case also for FPs (70.9\%). However, 29.1\% of FPs usually advised the use of an MDI/holding chamber to children with acute asthma. Despite the established efficacy of inhaled beta2-agonists administrated with an MDI compared with wet nebulization in acute asthma, this practice still is rather limited. The use of wet nebulization was more evident in hospital settings compared with community medicine. Emergency room visits may represent a missed opportunity to promote an effective method of delivering bronchodilators in childhood asthma

The predictive value of specific immunoglobulin E levels for the first diagnosis of cow's milk allergy. A critical analysis of pediatric literature.

Investigators have tried to identify a level of seric specific immunoglobulin E (IgE) that had a sufficient predictive value to diagnose a food allergy without having will resort to the food challenge. To search in literature, all the studies that have estimated the possibility to identify a level of seric specific cow milk IgE with a positive predictive value (PPV) of 95% for the first diagnosis of cow's milk allergy (CMA) in pediatric age. We have identified six studies, nearly all studies suffer from relevant methodological bias. Proposed cut-off are all different. The studied pediatric populations were highly selected. Also neglecting the methodological bias of the studies and the great difference of value between the proposed cut-off, it always remains to consider that the pre-test probability of having a CMA between the children enrolled in the six studies included in this review is particularly high. The likelihood ratio helps to transfer the results of a study on a diagnostic test just to our population, and it is more realistic rather than to entrust itself to the PPV or the negative predictive value, that are much influenced from the prevalence of the disease in the studied population

Does treatment with proton pump inhibitors for gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) improve asthma symptoms in children with asthma and GERD? A systematic review.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate pediatric studies of the effect on asthma symptoms of treatment with proton pump inhibitors (PPI) used to treat gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). METHODS: We entered the MeSH terms "gastroesophageal reflux AND asthma AND children" in the PubMed tool Clinical Queries, selecting "therapy" and "broad, sensitive search." The search ended on April 14, 2008. We included only clinical trials performed in pediatric patients. RESULTS: Four studies were considered to be relevant, although only 1 was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. The 3 nonrandomized trials showed that PPIs benefited patients with asthma. The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial found that omeprazole did not improve asthma symptoms. An improved (although not statistically significant) score was observed in the quality of life questionnaire in children with a reflux index greater than 10% and in those with more severe asthma treated with omeprazole compared with the placebo group. CONCLUSIONS: Scant data in these studies mean that we cannot make solid recommendations. However, in specific cases, we think that treatment of asthma symptoms with a PPI is valid as long as at least 2 conditions are satisfied: asthma must not respond to standard treatment, and 1 instrumental parameter of GERD severity must be satisfied, that is, a reflux index greater than or equal to 10 must be present