Towards a dialogical ethics of interprofessionalism

Contemporary medical practice brings a diverse range of professions and disciplines together in greater and closer contact. This situation of increasing complexity and changing professional roles gives rise to multifaceted ethical dilemmas and theoretical and practical concerns. In this essay we argue that for multidisciplinary relationships to be facilitated and to progress towards interdisciplinary teamwork, moral agents have to go beyond orthodox ethical systems and appeal to normative theory. We will argue that conceptualising ethics as a shared social practice may provide a useful starting point. This dialogic approach places greater emphasis on open deliberation and the articulation, negotiation, exploration and generation of new ethical perspectives in the here and now of clinical practice

Isolating Triggered Star Formation

Galaxy pairs provide a potentially powerful means of studying triggered star formation from galaxy interactions. We use a large cosmological N-body simulation coupled with a well-tested semi-analytic substructure model to demonstrate that the majority of galaxies in close pairs reside within cluster or group-size halos and therefore represent a biased population, poorly suited for direct comparison to ``field'' galaxies. Thus, the frequent observation that some types of galaxies in pairs have redder colors than ``field'' galaxies is primarily a selection effect. We select galaxy pairs that are isolated in their dark matter halos with respect to other massive subhalos (N=2 halos) and a control sample of isolated galaxies (N=1 halos) for comparison. We then apply these selection criteria to a volume-limited subset of the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey with M_Bj <= -19 and obtain the first clean measure of the typical fraction of galaxies affected by triggered star formation and the average elevation in the star formation rate. We find that 24% (30.5%) of these L^\star and sub-L^{\star} galaxies in isolated 50 (30) kpc/h pairs exhibit star formation that is boosted by a factor of >~ 5 above their average past value, while only 10% of isolated galaxies in the control sample show this level of enhancement. Thus, 14% (20 %) of the galaxies in these close pairs show clear triggered star formation. The isolation criteria we develop provide a means to constrain star formation and feedback prescriptions in hydrodynamic simulations and a very general method of understanding the importance of triggered star formation in a cosmological context. (Abridged.)Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures, emulateapj format, accepted by Ap

Increases in use of novel synthetic stimulant are not directly linked to decreased use of 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine (MDMA)

A decline in 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine (MDMA) use in Adelaide, Australia from 2009 to 2010 was confirmed by us previously. Reports suggested that the shortage in MDMA supply was associated with an increased prevalence of other synthetic stimulants, but quantitative measurements were unavailable. To obtain objective data on the community use of synthetic stimulants, we collected wastewater samples from multiple treatment plants in Adelaide, Australia from 2009 to 2011 and analysed them using solid-phase extraction/liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (SPE-LC-MS/MS), targeting MDMA and some of the most reported synthetic cathinones and piperazines. Data were temporally compared. MDMA and six other synthetic stimulants were detected and quantified in wastewater samples. While MDMA level decreased markedly from 2009 to 2010 and remained low in 2011, localized increased use of mephedrone, methylone, methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV), benzylpiperazine (BZP), 3-trifluoromethylphenylpiperazine (TFMPP), but not methcathinone, was observed in 2010 and 2011. This suggested that the decline in MDMA use was associated with an increase in the use of a number of other synthetic stimulants. However, the lag time from the decrease in MDMA to the increase in use of a number of these stimulants, together with the highly regionalized use of all synthetic stimulants except methcathinone indicates that there was no direct population wide substitution in response to the reduction in MDMA.Chang Chen, Chris Kostakis, Rodney J. Irvine, Jason M. Whit