Suchergebnisse

The following analysis of ethical issues in the testing of new drugs is located in a broader discussion of ethical issues in medical experimentation with human subjects generally. Major ethical principles which have emerged from the recent debate concerning biomedical and behavioral research are examined, special attention being given to the meaning and theological/philosophical basis of the consent requirement. Two models of medical ethics are examined, one beginning with the primacy of the "benefits to society" and the other with the primacy of the subject as person. The development and testing of a vaccine for the prevention of viral hepatitis type B is considered as a test case in the development and testing of a new drug.

This paper describes, firstly, how the "real-world" pension benefit losses of an unlawfully dismissed employee are dictated by three main variables: the benefit structure of the plan; the legal structure of the plan; and the employee's position in the labour market. Secondly, it shows that the common law measure of damages in a wrongful dismissal action fails to compensate adequately those losses. In contrast, the measures of damages in collective agreement arbitration, and in adjudication pursuant to section 61.5 of the Canada Labour Code' create the potential for a more realistic approach to compensating the employee for his "real-world" losses. Thirdly, comparison is made with the more fully developed jurisprudence under the British unfair dismissal legislation. Fourthly, some guidelines for compensating the "real-world" pension losses of the employee are suggested for Canadian legal umpires.

This paper reviews Lebanon's ability to manage financial pressures following severe shocks despite its large public debt overhang and significant external vulnerabilities. Based on interviews with market participants in Beirut and London, the paper concludes that Lebanon's ability to weather what appear to be ""perfect storms"" derives from three characteristics: a perceived implicit guarantee from donors; Lebanon's track record of having never defaulted on external debt or deposits; and the unique market structure for Lebanese debt which is dominated by local banks and ""dedicated"" investors

This paper applies a simple probabilistic approach to debt sustainability analysis to the case of Lebanon. The paper derives ""fan charts"" to depict the probability distribution of the government debt to GDP ratio under a medium-term adjustment scenario, as a result of shocks to GDP growth and interest rates. The distribution of shocks is derived from the past shocks to these variables and the related variance covariance. Because we are interested in assessing the sustainability of a particular policy scenario, we do not consider independent fiscal policy shocks or the endogenous policy respo

Agri-environment schemes are programmes where landholders enter into voluntary agreements (typically with governments) to manage agricultural land for environmental protection and nature conservation objectives. Previous work at local scale has shown that these features can provide additional floral and nesting resources to support wild pollinators, which may indirectly increase floral visitation to nearby crops. However, the effect of entire schemes on this important ecosystem service has never previously been studied at national scale. Focusing on four wild pollinator guilds (ground-nesting bumblebees, tree-nesting bumblebees, ground-nesting solitary bees, and cavity-nesting solitary bees), we used a state-of-the-art, process-based spatial model to examine the relationship between participation in agri-environment schemes across England during 2016 and the predicted abundances of these guilds and their visitation rates to four pollinator dependent crops (oilseed rape, field beans, orchard fruit and strawberries). Our modelling predicts that significant increases in national populations of ground-nesting bumblebees and ground-nesting solitary bees have occurred in response to the schemes. Lack of significant population increases for other guilds likely reflects specialist nesting resource requirements not well-catered for in schemes. We do not predict statistically significant increases in visitation to pollinator-dependent crops at national level as a result of scheme interventions but do predict some localised areas of significant increase in bumblebee visitation to crops flowering in late spring. Lack of any significant change in visitation to crops which flower outside this season is likely due to a combination of low provision of nesting resource relative to floral resource by scheme interventions and low overall participation in more intensively farmed landscapes. We recommend future schemes place greater importance on nesting resource provision alongside floral resource provision, better cater for the ...

We present geometric and dynamical modeling of the broad line region (BLR) for the multi-wavelength reverberation mapping campaign focused on NGC 5548 in 2014. The data set includes photometric and spectroscopic monitoring in the optical and ultraviolet, covering the H beta, Civ, and Ly alpha broad emission lines. We find an extended disk-like H beta BLR with a mixture of near-circular and outflowing gas trajectories, while the Civand Ly alpha BLRs are much less extended and resemble shell-like structures. There is clear radial structure in the BLR, with Civand Ly alpha emission arising at smaller radii than the H beta emission. Using the three lines, we make three independent black hole mass measurements, all of which are consistent. Combining these results gives a joint inference of log(10) (M-BH/M-circle dot) = 7.64(-0.18)(+0.21). We examine the effect of using the V band instead of the UV continuum light curve on the results and find a size difference that is consistent with the measured UV-optical time lag, but the other structural and kinematic parameters remain unchanged, suggesting that theVband is a suitable proxy for the ionizing continuum when exploring the BLR structure and kinematics. Finally, we compare the H beta results to similar models of data obtained in 2008 when the active galactic nucleus was at a lower luminosity state. We find that the size of the emitting region increased during this time period, but the geometry and black hole mass remained unchanged, which confirms that the BLR kinematics suitably gauge the gravitational field of the central black hole. ; National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) AST-1908952 AST-1814440 Space Telescope Science Institute National Science Foundation (NSF) AST-1211916 Packard Foundation through a Packard Fellowship AST-1412315 AST-1907208 Space Telescope Science Institute 17-ATP17-0141 19-ATP19-0188 NRF grant HST-AR-15018 HST-AR-14556 Korean Government 2020R1A2C3011091 Independent Research Fund Denmark DFF 8021-00130 NASA ADAP grant 80NSSC19K1016 National Science Foundation (NSF) Eberly Research Fellowship from The Pennsylvania State University Eberly College of Science AST-1909297 Center for Exoplanets Pennsylvania State University Eberly College of Science Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium TABASGO Foundation Christopher R. Redlich Fund Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science (U.C. Berkeley)