The whole truth and nothing but the truth, but what is the truth?

The moral aspects of genetic counselling are explored in situations where the outcome of a DNA test does not lead to certain knowledge. The most frequent type of interaction between counsellor and counsellee is when factual information is given, but sometimes "factual" information is difficult to obtain. How do counsellors deal with "uncertain" knowledge in genetics? Arguments and assumptions are presented and the finding of a 27 CAG repeat in the Huntington gene is used as an example. However, the questions "how far does the duty to inform reach?" and "to what extent is the doctor responsible?" are important in the whole field of genetics, and will be even more important in the future. The aims of science and clinical practice are discussed; we conclude that counsellors run the risk of taking on an infinite responsibility

Near-source error sensor strategies for active vibration isolation of machines

Due to lightweight construction of vehicles and ships, the reduction of structure borne interior noise problems with passive isolation of engine vibrations might be not sufficient. To improve the isolation, a combination of passive and active isolation techniques can be used (so-called hybrid isolation). This paper focusses on the influence of the sensor positions on the performance of the active isolation. In general two strategies can be distinguished: sensors located in the accommodation with a direct minimization of the sound field and sensors located near the source of vibration. In this paper attention will be paid to an effective weighting of the near-source sensors in such a way that the interior noise in the vehicle is reduced. Also the nearsource strategy of minimization of the injected power is considered. The latter strategy is theoretically very attractive, but is much more difficult to implement in practice. The techniques are explained and compared to each other with the help of numerical models

Parallel and serial reading processes in children's word and nonword reading

Fluent reading is characterized by rapid and accurate identification of words. It is commonly accepted that such identification relies on the availability of orthographic knowledge. However, whether this orthographic knowledge should be seen as an accumulation of word-specific knowledge in a lexicon acquired through decoding or as a well-developed associative network of sublexical units is still under debate. We studied this key issue in reading research by looking at the serial and/or parallel reading processes underlying word and nonword reading. Participants were 314 Dutch 2nd, 3rd, and 5th graders. The children were administered digit, word, and nonword naming tasks. We used latent class analyses to distinguish between readers who processed the letter strings serially or in parallel, based on the correlation patterns of word and nonword reading with serial and discrete digit naming. The 2 classes of readers were distinguished for both word and nonword reading. The validity of these classes was supported by differences in sensitivity to word and nonword length. Interestingly, the different classes seemed to reflect a developmental shift from reading all letter strings serially toward parallel processing of words, and later of nonwords. The results are not fully in line with current theories on the representation of orthographic knowledge. Implications in terms of models of the reading process are discussed