Cognitive Self-Enhancement as a Duty to Oneself: A Kantian Perspective

Recently some bioethicists and neuroscientists have argued for an imperative of chemical cognitive enhancement. This imperative is usually based on consequentialist grounds. In this paper, the topic of cognitive self-enhancement is discussed from a Kantian point of view in order to shed new light on the controversial debate. With Kant, it is an imperfect duty to oneself to strive for perfecting one's own natural and moral capacities beyond one's natural condition, but there is no duty to enhance others. A Kantian approach does not directly lead to a duty of chemical cognitive self-enhancement, but it also does not clearly rule out that this type of enhancement can be an appropriate means to the end of self-improvement. Th

Adjuvant and neoadjuvant therapy for gastric cancer using epirubicin/cisplatin/5-fluorouracil (ECF) and alternative regimens before and after chemoradiation

Chemoradiation is now used more commonly for gastric cancer following publication of the US Intergroup trial results that demonstrate an advantage to adjuvant postoperative chemoradiotherapy. However, there remain concerns regarding the toxicity of this treatment, the optimal chemotherapy regimen and the optimal method of radiotherapy delivery. In this prospective study, we evaluated the toxicity and feasibility of an alternative chemoradiation regimen to that used in the Intergroup trial. A total of 26 patients with adenocarcinoma of the stomach were treated with 3D-conformal radiation therapy to a dose of 45 Gy in 25 fractions with concurrent continuous infusional 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). The majority of patients received epirubicin, cisplatin and 5-FU (ECF) as the systemic component given before and after concurrent chemoradiation. The overall rates of observed grade 3 and 4 toxicities were 38 and 15%, respectively. GIT grade 3 toxicity was observed in 19% of patients, while haematologic grade 3 and 4 toxicities were observed in 23%. Our results suggest that this adjuvant regimen can be delivered safely and with acceptable toxicity. This regimen forms the basis of several new studies being developed for postoperative adjuvant therapy of gastric cancer

COMAP Early Science: VI. A First Look at the COMAP Galactic Plane Survey

We present early results from the COMAP Galactic Plane Survey conducted between June 2019 and April 2021, spanning $20^\circ<\ell<40^\circ$ in Galactic longitude and |b|<1.\!\!^{\circ}5 in Galactic latitude with an angular resolution of $4.5^{\prime}$. The full survey will span $\ell \sim 20^{\circ}$- $220^{\circ}$ and will be the first large-scale radio continuum survey at $30$ GHz with sub-degree resolution. We present initial results from the first part of the survey, including diffuse emission and spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of HII regions and supernova remnants. Using low and high frequency surveys to constrain free-free and thermal dust emission contributions, we find evidence of excess flux density at $30\,$GHz in six regions that we interpret as anomalous microwave emission. Furthermore we model UCHII contributions using data from the $5\,$GHz CORNISH catalogue and reject this as the cause of the $30\,$GHz excess. Six known supernova remnants (SNR) are detected at $30\,$GHz, and we measure spectral indices consistent with the literature or show evidence of steepening. The flux density of the SNR W44 at $30\,$GHz is consistent with a power-law extrapolation from lower frequencies with no indication of spectral steepening in contrast with recent results from the Sardinia Radio Telescope. We also extract five hydrogen radio recombination lines to map the warm ionized gas, which can be used to estimate electron temperatures or to constrain continuum free-free emission. The full COMAP Galactic plane survey, to be released in 2023/2024, will be an invaluable resource for Galactic astrophysics.Comment: Paper 6 of 7 in series. 28 pages, 10 figures, submitted to Ap

Genetic variants regulating ORMDL3 expression contribute to the risk of childhood asthma

Asthma is caused by a combination of poorly understood genetic and environmental factors(1,2). We have systematically mapped the effects of single nucleotide polymorphisms ( SNPs) on the presence of childhood onset asthma by genome-wide association. We characterized more than 317,000 SNPs in DNA from 994 patients with childhood onset asthma and 1,243 non-asthmatics, using family and case-referent panels. Here we show multiple markers on chromosome 17q21 to be strongly and reproducibly associated with childhood onset asthma in family and case-referent panels with a combined P value of P < 10(-12). In independent replication studies the 17q21 locus showed strong association with diagnosis of childhood asthma in 2,320 subjects from a cohort of German children (P=0.0003) and in 3,301 subjects from the British 1958 Birth Cohort (P=0.0005). We systematically evaluated the relationships between markers of the 17q21 locus and transcript levels of genes in Epstein - Barr virus (EBV)-transformed lymphoblastoid cell lines from children in the asthma family panel used in our association study. The SNPs associated with childhood asthma were consistently and strongly associated (P < 10(-22)) in cis with transcript levels of ORMDL3, a member of a gene family that encodes transmembrane proteins anchored in the endoplasmic reticulum(3). The results indicate that genetic variants regulating ORMDL3 expression are determinants of susceptibility to childhood asthma.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/62682/1/nature06014.pd

Legal linked data ecosystems and the rule of law

This chapter introduces the notions of meta-rule of law and socio-legal ecosystems to both foster and regulate linked democracy. It explores the way of stimulating innovative regulations and building a regulatory quadrant for the rule of law. The chapter summarises briefly (i) the notions of responsive, better and smart regulation; (ii) requirements for legal interchange languages (legal interoperability); (iii) and cognitive ecology approaches. It shows how the protections of the substantive rule of law can be embedded into the semantic languages of the web of data and reflects on the conditions that make possible their enactment and implementation as a socio-legal ecosystem. The chapter suggests in the end a reusable multi-levelled meta-model and four notions of legal validity: positive, composite, formal, and ecological