Biotechnological patents and morality: A critical view from a developing country
Biotechnology has now become an important factor for the increasing rate of scientific and technological development, particularly in the fields of medicine and agriculture. A great deal of modern pharmaceuticals have been directly and indirectly developed from biotech inventions. For example, it is estimated that nearly 30 per cent of the present world drug market is accounted for by biotechnological products such as antibiotics, steroids, vitamins, and vaccines. The significance of biotechnology may stem from the fact that some modern drugs developed from biotechnology are able to target traditional diseases more precisely than conventional drugs, and biotech medicines provide more precise cures with fewer side effects (Business Week, 1992, pp. 52-53). In agriculture, plant breeding was once restricted to sexually compatible plants, and generations of offspring were selectively bred to create unique varieties. Currently, genetically modified (GM) crops have the fastest adoption rate of any new technology in global agriculture simply because of their claimed benefits from higher yields and lowered production costs. It is estimated that over 9,000 permits have been issued to field-test GM crops by United States Animal and Plant Health ABsTrACT
Ubiquitous Computing: Any Ethical Implications?
In this article, the authors investigate, from an interdisciplinary perspective, possible ethical implications of the presence of ubiquitous computing systems in human perception/action. The term ubiquitous computing is used to characterize information-processing capacity from computers that are available everywhere and all the time, integrated into everyday objects and activities. The contrast in approach to aspects of ubiquitous computing between traditional considerations of ethical issues and the Ecological Philosophy view concerning its possible consequences in the context of perception/action are the underlying themes of this paper. The focus is on an analysis of how the generalized dissemination of microprocessors in embedded systems, commanded by a ubiquitous computing system, can affect the behaviour of people considered as embodied embedded agents.
Byron: Augustan and Romantic
The impact of Byron's writings - an evaluative approach, William St Clair "My brain is feminine" - Byron and the poetry of deception, Jerome J. McGann Byron and the romantic heroine, Malcolm Kelsall Byron and the Empire in the East, Marilyn Butler Byron Augustan - mutations of mock-heroic in "Don Juan" and Shelley's "Peter Bell the Third", Claude Rawson continuities and discontinuities of language and voice in Dryden, Pope, and Byron, Bernard Beatty Augustan satires and Panegyrics on London and Byron's image of the city, Michael Gassermeier Byron, Pope, and the Grand Tour, Michael G. Cooke Byron in Italy - the return of Augustus, Donald H. Reiman "Don Juan" transformed, Anne Barton Byron's "Wrong Revolutionary System" and romanticism, Hermann Fischer the quintessential Byron, Leslie A. Marchand.