Designing a Good Life: A Matrix for the Technological Mediation of Morality

Technologies fulfill a social role in the sense that they influence the moral actions of people, often in unintended and unforeseen ways. Scientists and engineers are already accepting much responsibility for the technological, economical and environmental aspects of their work. This article asks them to take an extra step, and now also consider the social role of their products. The aim is to enable engineers to take a prospective responsibility for the future social roles of their technologies by providing them with a matrix that helps to explore in advance how emerging technologies might plausibly affect the reasons behind people’s (moral) actions. On the horizontal axis of the matrix, we distinguished the three basic types of reasons that play a role in practical judgment: what is the case, what can be done and what should be done. On the vertical axis we distinguished the morally relevant classes of issues: stakeholders, consequences and the good life. To illustrate how this matrix may work in practice, the final section applies the matrix to the case of the Google PowerMeter

Medial compartment disease in a young Large Munsterlander

Medial compartment disease (MCD) is a recently recognized elbow disorder in dogs and refers to extensive cartilage erosions of the medial compartment of the elbow joint. This report describes a case of MCD in a 10- month-old Large Munsterlander that was presented with right frontleg lameness. Based on signalement, history and radiographic examination, there was a strong suspicion of a fragmented coronoid process (FCP) of the right elbow. However, arthroscopic examination revealed extensive cartilage erosions of the medial part of the humeral condyle and the medial coronoid process in addition to a small coronoid fragment (FCP) and a small OCD-Iike lesion. After the arthroscopic treatment, the dog did not improve. Neither did additional treatment with autologous conditioned plasma (Arthrex ACP\uc2\uae) lead to a substantial improvement. Finally, the dog was euthanized because of persistent lameness

Intraobserver and interobserver agreement for results of low-field magnetic resonance imaging in dogs with and without clinical signs of disk-associated wobbler syndrome

OBJECTIVE: To determine interobserver and intraobserver agreement for results of low-field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in dogs with and without disk-associated wobbler syndrome (DAWS). DESIGN: Validation study. ANIMALS: 21 dogs with and 23 dogs without clinical signs of DAWS. PROCEDURES: For each dog, MRI of the cervical vertebral column was performed. The MRI studies were presented in a randomized sequence to 4 board-certified radiologists blinded to clinical status. Observers assessed degree of disk degeneration, disk-associated and dorsal compression, alterations in intraspinal signal intensity (ISI), vertebral body abnormalities, and new bone formation and categorized each study as originating from a clinically affected or clinically normal dog. Interobserver agreement was calculated for 44 initial measurements for each observer. Intraobserver agreement was calculated for 11 replicate measurements for each observer. RESULTS: There was good interobserver agreement for ratings of disk degeneration and vertebral body abnormalities and moderate interobserver agreement for ratings of disk-associated compression, dorsal compression, alterations in ISI, new bone formation, and suspected clinical status. There was very good intraobserver agreement for ratings of disk degeneration, disk-associated compression, alterations in ISI, vertebral body abnormalities, and suspected clinical status. There was good intraobserver agreement for ratings of dorsal compression and new bone formation. Two of 21 clinically affected dogs were erroneously categorized as clinically normal, and 4 of 23 clinically normal dogs were erroneously categorized as clinically affected. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Results suggested that variability exists among observers with regard to results of MRI in dogs with DAWS and that MRI could lead to false-positive and false-negative assessments

Brain SPECT in the behaviourally disordered dog

Dogs can be used as research models in order to contribute to a better understanding of human neuropsychiatric disorders and to explore treatment options. In general, smaller laboratory animals, most often mice and rats, have been extensively used. Nevertheless, the implementation of larger animal (e.g. dogs) models has several important advantages. Their larger brain size omits the need for dedicated equipment (micro-PET or micro-SPECT), and the larger portion of the frontal cortex (crucial to behaviour regulation) in particular allows superior investigation of this area. They can further be used to investigate normal physiology and interaction of several neurotransmitter systems and the effects of drugs on brain function and chemistry. In this regard, they can also be used to obtain information on the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of newly developed drugs and the dosage at which maximal response and least side effects occur. Finally, natural animal behavioural models of disorders can be used to enlighten the biological base of several human neuropsychiatric disorders. In this chapter, an overview will be provided on the use of functional brain imaging in dogs suffering from impulsive aggression