Is There a Doctor in the House? Medical Ethics and the Doctoral Honorific

The proliferation of professional doctorates has reinvigorated debate over the use of the doctoral honorific. Doctorate holders are often addressed as “doctor” in academic contexts, but idiomatic American English associates “doctor” with physicians—licensed clinicians with doctoral degrees in medicine. The possibility of patient confusion has historically justified proscription of the doctoral honorific by others, including nurses, but recently such proscriptions have been withdrawn. An examination of history, language, and ethical reasoning leads us to conclude that, in the context of patient interaction, clinicians should eschew the doctoral honorific entirely. We think it appropriate for professionals to rely on training-pathway titles as part of their professional duty to inform. In particular, we argue that licensed clinicians with doctoral degrees in medicine should embrace the title of “physician.

Failure detectors encapsulate fairness

Failure detectors have long been viewed as abstractions for the synchronism present in distributed system models. However, investigations into the exact amount of synchronism encapsulated by a given failure detector have met with limited success. The reason for this is that traditionally, models of partial synchrony are specified with respect to real time, but failure detectors do not encapsulate real time. Instead, we argue that failure detectors encapsulate the fairness in computation and communication. Fairness is a measure of the number of steps executed by one process relative either to the number of steps taken by another process or relative to the duration for which a message is in transit. We argue that failure detectors are substitutable for the fairness properties (rather than real-time properties) of partially synchronous systems. We propose four fairness-based models of partial synchrony and demonstrate that they are, in fact, the ‘weakest system models’ to implement the canonical failure detectors from the Chandra-Toueg hierarchy. We also propose a set of fairness-based models which encapsulate the G[subscript c] parametric failure detectors which eventually and permanently suspect crashed processes, and eventually and permanently trust some fixed set of c correct processes.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant CCF-0964696)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant CCF-0937274)Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (grant NHARP 000512-0130-2007)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (NSF Science and Technology Center, grant agreement CCF-0939370

The weakest failure detector for wait-free dining under eventual weak exclusion

Dining philosophers is a classic scheduling problem for local mutual exclusion on arbitrary conflict graphs. We establish necessary conditions to solve wait-free dining under eventual weak exclusion in message-passing systems with crash faults. Wait-free dining ensures that every correct hungry process eventually eats. Eventual weak exclusion permits finitely many scheduling mistakes, but eventually no live neighbors eat simultaneously; this exclusion criterion models scenarios where scheduling mistakes are recoverable or only affect per-formance. Previous work showed that the eventually perfect failure detector (3P) is sufficient to solve wait-free dining under eventual weak exclusion; we prove that 3P is also necessary, and thus 3P is the weakest oracle to solve this problem. Our reduction also establishes that any such din-ing solution can be made eventually fair. Finally, the reduc-tion itself may be of more general interest; when applied to wait-free perpetual weak exclusion, our reduction produces an alternative proof that the more powerful trusting oracle (T) is necessary (but not sufficient) to solve the problem o

The weakest failure detector for wait-free dining under eventual weak exclusion

ABSTRACT Dining philosophers is a classic scheduling problem for local mutual exclusion on arbitrary conflict graphs. We establish necessary conditions to solve wait-free dining under eventual weak exclusion in message-passing systems with crash faults. Wait-free dining ensures that every correct hungry process eventually eats. Eventual weak exclusion permits finitely many scheduling mistakes, but eventually no live neighbors eat simultaneously; this exclusion criterion models scenarios where scheduling mistakes are recoverable or only affect performance. Previous work showed that the eventually perfect failure detector (3P) is sufficient to solve wait-free dining under eventual weak exclusion; we prove that 3P is also necessary, and thus 3P is the weakest oracle to solve this problem. Our reduction also establishes that any such dining solution can be made eventually fair. Finally, the reduction itself may be of more general interest; when applied to wait-free perpetual weak exclusion, our reduction produces an alternative proof that the more powerful trusting oracle (T ) is necessary (but not sufficient) to solve the problem of Fault-Tolerant Mutual Exclusion (FTME)

Derivation of an endogenous small RNA from double-stranded Sox4 sense and natural antisense transcripts in the mouse brain

Natural antisense transcripts (NATs) are involved in cellular development and regulatory processes. Multiple NATs at the Sox4 gene locus are spatiotemporally regulated throughout murine cerebral corticogenesis. In the study, we evaluated the potential functional role of Sox4 NATs at Sox4 gene locus. We demonstrated Sox4 sense and NATs formed dsRNA aggregates in the cytoplasm of brain cells. Over expression of Sox4 NATs in NIH/3T3 cells generally did not alter the level of Sox4 mRNA expression or protein translation. Upregulation of a Sox4 NAT known as Sox4ot1 led to the production of a novel small RNA, Sox4_sir3. Its biogenesis is Dicer1-dependent and has characteristics resemble piRNA. Expression of Sox4_sir3 was observed in the marginal and germinative zones of the developing and postnatal brains suggesting a potential role in regulating neurogenesis. We proposed that Sox4 sense-NATs serve as Dicer1-dependent templates to produce a novel endo-siRNA- or piRNA-like Sox4_sir3

Summary distribution of slides and earth flows

Future movement of slides and earth flows is most likely to occur within the delineated parts of the landscape where these landslides have previously moved. OPEN-FILE REPORT 97-745 C 1997 This report is preliminary and has not been reviewed for conformity with U.S. Geological Survey editorial standards or with the Norm American Stratigraphic Code. Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. This database, identified as 'Summary Distribution of Slides and Earth Flows in the San Francisco Bay Region, California', has been approved for release and publication by the Director of the USGS. Although this database has been reviewed and is substantially complete, the USGS reserves the right to revise the data pursuant to further analysis and review. This database is released on condition that neither the USGS nor the U.S. Government may be held liable for any damages resulting from it use

Ethnic differences in ovulatory function in nulliparous women

African-American women have a long-standing approximately 20% higher breast cancer incidence rate than USA White women under age 40 while rates among Latinas are lower than those of Whites. The reasons for this are not clear, however they may be due to ethnic differences in circulating oestradiol and progesterone levels. In a cross-sectional study, we investigated whether anovulation frequency and circulating serum oestradiol and/or progesterone levels vary among normally cycling nulliparous African-American (n=60), Latina (n=112) and non-Latina White (n=69) women. Blood and urine specimens were collected over two menstrual cycles among healthy 17- to 34-year-old women. Frequency of anovulation was greater among White women (nine out of 63, 14.3%) than African-American women (four out of 56, 7.1%) or Latina women (seven out of 102, 6.9%), although these differences were not statistically significant. African-American women had 9.9% (P=0.26) higher follicular phase oestradiol concentrations than Latina women and 17.4% (P=0.13) higher levels than White women. African-American women also had considerably higher levels of luteal phase oestradiol (vs Latinas, +9.4%, P=0.14; vs Whites, +25.3%, P=0.003) and progesterone (vs Latinas, +15.4%, P=0.07; vs Whites, +36.4%, P=0.002). Latina women were also observed to have higher follicular oestradiol, and luteal oestradiol and progesterone levels than White women (follicular oestradiol: +6.8%, P=0.48; luteal oestradiol: +14.6%, P=0.04; luteal progesterone: +18.2%, P=0.06). These results suggest that exposure to endogenous steroid hormones may be greater for young African-American and Latina women than for Whites

Tales from the Drop Zone: roles, risks and dramaturgical dilemmas

This paper critically revisits conventional understandings of ethnographic fieldwork roles, arguing that representations of the covert insider as heroic and adventurous are often idealistic and unrealistic. Drawing on one of the authors’ experiences of being both a covert and overt researcher in an ethnographic study of skydiving, we identify some of the dramaturgical dilemmas that can unexpectedly affect relations with participants throughout the research process. Our overall aim is to highlight how issues of trust, betrayal, exposure and vulnerability, together with the practical considerations of field research, combine to shape the researcher’s interactional strategies of identity work

The Effect of Concurrent and Terminal Feedback on VO2max

Concurrent feedback is the continuous provision of information regarding task performance given during the performance, while terminal feedback is the provision of this information only at the conclusion of the task. The following study examined performance on VO2max tests (VO2max, time to exhaustion, HR and RER) using these two types of feedback. Participants consisted of 14 males and 10 females with a mean age of 21.7 ± 2 years. Stratified random sampling was used to assign participants to either concurrent or terminal feedback. The two groups (n=12) were treated to a split-halves-transfer design upon completion of the first test. There were four separate groups: concurrent to concurrent feedback (CC), concurrent to terminal feedback (CT), terminal to concurrent feedback (TC), and terminal to terminal feedback (TT). Seven days transpired between the two tests. From the original sample of 24 participants, 21 completed all testing and were included in the data analysis. The terminal to concurrent feedback group (TC) showed a significant increase in VO2max evidenced by the significant test by group interaction (F3,17 = 3.28, p = 0.047). This finding suggests that using concurrent feedback as a form of motivation can elicit a greater VO2max compared with terminal feedback