Bioethical strategies in the context of bioart

The paper discusses topics such as bioart, in the perspective of a cultural phenomenon, present in contemporary Polish and world art. The space of contemporary art, which as a material of expression uses specialist knowledge in the field of bioengineering and tissue culture along with living material, has been a challenge for artists and analysts of art, culture, science and ethics for years. The activity of Eduardo Kac is recalled as well as the Polish bioartist, Karolina Żyniewicz. In her projects, the artist collaborates with scientists, building an interdisciplinary platform for the exchange of knowledge and experiences. These deliberations are supplemented with literature on bioethics: positions, opinions and other regulatory documents (The Committee for Bioethics PAS, the Council of Europe, CIOMS, UNESCO) in the context of non-medical and artistic activities. The paper is an attempt to find answers to questions about the way in which new bioethical regulations should be updated and formulated. What bioethical strategies should be taken in this historical moment of our time, where an artwork is both artistic and also strictly scientific

PARTICIPATION OF ALLAH’S WARRIORS IN THE WAR IN FORMER YUGOSLAVIA (1992-1995)

The main aim of this paper is to show the participation of mercenaries in the war in former Yugoslavia who fought on the Muslim side. The author presents the thesis that they were recruited to participate in the defense of Muslim community, which they believed was threatened by Serbs. However, their goal soon became to conduct jihad. Muslim mercenaries, also known as warriors of Allah (warriors of God) or Garibi, often proved to be cruel and committed war crimes. Among them were veterans of the war in Afghanistan, the Mujahideen. After the end of hostilities, many of God’s warriors remained in the Balkans, and their settlement brought a lot of negative changes to the social and political life of the region. The Garibi contributed greatly to the strengthening of influence of Islamic states and institutions in the Balkans, as well as to the development of Wahhabi sects supporting terrorism

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MUSLIM NATION IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

The main goal of this article is to show the conditions and circumstances of the formation of Muslim nation in communist Yugoslavia and the increase of its significance during and after the civil war 1992-1995. Furthermore, author presents the characteristics of contemporary nationalism, and distinguishes specific Balkan nationalism, which is often chauvinistic, ahistorical, militant and exclusive, of ethnocultural character. The identity of Bosnian Muslims originated from belief that their origin, language and culture related to Bosnia and Herzegovina, which makes them different from the Turks and other Islamic nations living in the Ottoman Empire. The genesis of forming Muslim nation in Yugoslavia is interpreted in various ways by the researchers. There is a hypothesis that it has been developed thanks to activity of young people who convinced Josip Broz Tito that such decision would reduce tensions between the Serbs and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to the Author, Muslim inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina can’t be a separate nation, above all, since the followers of Islam were nationally indifferent, and their cultural legacy is completely different than Serbian and Croatian legacy

Meeting Review: 2002 O'Reilly Bioinformatics Technology Conference

At the end of January I travelled to the States to speak at and attend the first O’Reilly Bioinformatics Technology Conference [14]. It was a large, well-organized and diverse meeting with an interesting history. Although the meeting was not a typical academic conference, its style will, I am sure, become more typical of meetings in both biological and computational sciences

The effect of premature extraction of primary molars on spatial conditions and formation of malocclusion : a systematic review

Introduction: Premature loss of deciduous teeth is considered to be one of the local environmental factors interfering with normal development of the occlusion. Extraction of deciduous tooth before the time of its physiological exfoliation carries the risk of creation of unfavorable spatial changes in sagittal, transverse and vertical plane. Despite the undeniable role of well-preserved primary dentition in the development of occlusion in adulthood, there are still controversies regarding indications for implementation of space maintainers. Objectives: Analysis of available literature in terms of consequences of premature loss of deciduous molar teeth. Material and methods: The literature review was conducted in PubMed, EMBASE and Scopus databases in July 2017 basing on keyword “premature primary tooth loss”. English and Polish-language magazines were taken into account without specifying the time frame. Results: In total, 20 papers were selected for further detailed analysis, of which 11 were based on longitudinal studies, 9 were cross-sectional studies (including 7 retrospective studies and 2 systematic literature reviews). Conclusions: Premature extraction of the upper first primary molar may lead to buccal eruption of permanent canine as a consequence of more mesial eruption of first premolar. Increased risk of space loss within dental arch exists especially in case of coexistence of cusp to cusp relationship on first molars and leptoprosopic facial type. Consequences of losing lower first deciduous molar are less obvious. Extraction of second deciduous molars may result in much more serious disturbances related to mesial migration of first permanent molars, resulting in retention or abnormal eruption of second premolars. Repercussions of early loss of deciduous teeth are often visible only at the moment of eruption of permanent successors and depend on many variables, among which patient’s age at the time of extraction, initial spatial conditions (crowding/spacing) and the number and type of lost teeth should be mentioned

Integrating Radar Image Data with Google Maps

A public Web site has been developed as a method for displaying the multitude of radar imagery collected by NASA s Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR) instrument during its 16-year mission. Utilizing NASA s internal AIRSAR site, the new Web site features more sophisticated visualization tools that enable the general public to have access to these images. The site was originally maintained at NASA on six computers: one that held the Oracle database, two that took care of the software for the interactive map, and three that were for the Web site itself. Several tasks were involved in moving this complicated setup to just one computer. First, the AIRSAR database was migrated from Oracle to MySQL. Then the back-end of the AIRSAR Web site was updated in order to access the MySQL database. To do this, a few of the scripts needed to be modified; specifically three Perl scripts that query that database. The database connections were then updated from Oracle to MySQL, numerous syntax errors were corrected, and a query was implemented that replaced one of the stored Oracle procedures. Lastly, the interactive map was designed, implemented, and tested so that users could easily browse and access the radar imagery through the Google Maps interface