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Medical Sciences	40%

Selected Abstracts

A Transdisciplinary Approach to Conservation Land Acquisition

CONSERVATION BIOLOGY, Issue 6 2002
Brian Czech
I integrated principles of conservation biology, ecological economics, and political science to outline an approach to conservation land acquisition in the United States. American political economy, especially, has profound implications for conservation land acquisition, yet these implications have been largely neglected by public land conservation agencies. I derived three general recommendations for the conservation of biodiversity via land acquisition: (1) relatively inexpensive lands in relatively intact ecosystems should be prioritized for acquisition, (2) fee-title acquisition should be favored over easement acquisition, and (3) low-lying coastal properties should receive lower priority. These recommendations contribute to an ecologically macroeconomic approach to conservation land acquisition, and each will become more appropriate as the sizes of the U.S. and global economies increase. Ultimately, however, the conservation of biodiversity will require a new political economy predicated on sustainability rather than growth. Resumen: La adquisición de tierras es uno de los aspectos claves para la conservación de la biodiversidad y es una empresa transdisciplinaria que requiere de la consideración de fenómenos sociales y naturales. Integré los principios de la biología de la conservación, la economía ecológica y las ciencias políticas para desarrollar una metodología de adquisición de tierras para la conservación en los Estados Unidos. La economía política norteamericana, especialmente tiene implicancias profundas sobre la adquisición de tierras para la conservación, sin embargo, estas aplicaciones han sido negadas ampliamente por las agencias de conservación de tierras públicas. Derivé tres recomendaciones generales para la conservación de la biodiversidad mediante la adquisición de tierras: 1) tierras relativamente baratas en ecosistemas relativamente intactos deben ser priorizadas para la adquisición, 2) los títulos de adquisición honoraria deben ser favorecidos sobre las adquisiciones forzadas y 3) las propiedades costeras bajas deberán recibir la prioridad más baja. Estas recomendaciones contribuyen a una aproximación ecológicamente macroeconómica para la adquisición de tierras para la conservación y cada una de ellas será más apropiada en tanto que los bienes de los Estados Unidos y la economía global incremente. Sin embargo, a fin de cuentas, la conservación de la biodiversidad requerirá de una nueva economía política predicada en la sustentabilidad más que en el crecimiento. [source]

Nursing Diagnosis Extension and Classification: Ongoing Phase

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NURSING TERMINOLOGIES AND CLASSIFICATION, Issue 2003
Martha Craft-Rosenberg
BACKGROUND The Nursing Diagnosis Extension and Classification Project (NDEC) has been active for almost a decade. The team began with the formation of a team of investigators at The University of Iowa College of Nursing. From 1994 until 2000 the research team consisted of 16 investigators who were experts in nursing care across the lifespan. They also represented expertise in both qualitative and quantitative research. The aims of the NDEC research are to evaluate and revise NANDA diagnoses, to validate the diagnoses using a clinical information system, and to develop candidate diagnoses. MAIN CONTENT POINTS Phase 1 of the NDEC research has yielded 116 refined and developed nursing diagnoses that have been submitted to NANDA. Of these, 65 have been approved and 54 appeared in Nursing Diagnoses: Definitions and Classification, 1999,2000 along with 39 NDEC products. In the 2000,2001 edition, 7 diagnoses refined by NDEC and 7 new diagnoses submitted by NDEC are included. As only about half the NDEC products have appeared in NANDA publications, the three-level review process (Diagnosis Review Committee, membership, and Board) has been discussed with the NANDA board. This request is currently being honored by the Diagnosis Review Committee; however, review by the membership and review by the NANDA board is just beginning to move in this direction. Phase 2, clinical validation of the NDEC work, is being conducted at a long-term care facility. It will also be conducted at a large teaching hospital. All the NDEC refinement and development work has been submitted for clinical validation. Currently validation is planned at the label level only. Phase 3 involves identification of candidate diagnoses. Many of the candidate diagnoses were developed during the concept analysis phase, when NDEC team members identified the need for additional diagnoses. Nurses in practice have submitted other candidate diagnoses. In total 195 candidate diagnoses have been identified and placed into a database. In order for the NDEC team to make decisions regarding priorities for diagnosis development, the diagnoses in the candidate database are compared to diagnoses in other classifications that have already been developed. Several classifications are used for comparison including the Omaha System and the Home Health Care Classification. A large table is used to compare candidate label to other labels. Candidate diagnosis included in other classifications will be given lower priority for development by NDEC. CONCLUSIONS The NDEC work plan includes work on diagnoses to be resubmitted to the NANDA Diagnosis Review Committee. It is hoped that the Web site for NLINKS will facilitate the work of diagnosis refinement and development. NDEC will continue to work with any investigator who is seeking assistance. The last part of the work plan is resource acquisition and recruitment of investigators to continue the refinement and development of diagnoses. [source]

Public and professional attitudes to transplanting alcoholic patients

LIVER TRANSPLANTATION, Issue S2 2007
James Neuberger
The discrepancy between the number of people who might benefit from liver transplantation continues to exceed the availability of donor livers available, so rationing of grafts must occur. Alcoholic liver disease (ALD) is an excellent indication for liver transplantation, with outcomes at least as good as for other indications. ALD remains a controversial indication for liver transplantation. There is no robust evidence that public disquiet over distribution of donor livers to those with ALD (even if they return to alcohol) greatly affects organ donation, although this does not mean there is no consequence of such disquiet. Numerous surveys of the general public, patients, and health care professionals indicate the these patients are thought to have lower priority for access to available liver grafts. Public education is required to demonstrate that patients with ALD are carefully selected for liver transplantation and available grafts are used with attention to equity, justice, and utility. Liver Transpt 13: S65,S68. 2007. © 2007 AASLD. [source]

Join tree propagation with prioritized messages

NETWORKS: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 4 2010
C. J. Butz
Abstract Current join tree propagation algorithms treat all propagated messages as being of equal importance. On the contrary, it is often the case in real-world Bayesian networks that only some of the messages propagated from one join tree node to another are relevant to subsequent message construction at the receiving node. In this article, we propose the first join tree propagation algorithm that identifies and constructs the relevant messages first. Our approach assigns lower priority to the irrelevant messages as they only need to be constructed so that posterior probabilities can be computed when propagation terminates. Experimental results, involving the processing of evidence in four real-world Bayesian networks, empirically demonstrate an improvement over the state-of-the-art method for exact inference in discrete Bayesian networks. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. NETWORKS, 2010 [source]

WHEN GOOD ORGANS GO TO BAD PEOPLE

BIOETHICS, Issue 2 2008
DIEN HO
ABSTRACT A number of philosophers have argued that alcoholics should receive lower priority for liver transplantations because they are morally responsible for their medical conditions. In this paper, I argue that this conclusion is false. Moral responsibility should not be used as a criterion for the allocation of medical resources. The reason I advance goes further than the technical problem of assessing moral responsibility. The deeper problem is that using moral responsibility as an allocation criterion undermines the functioning of medicine. [source]