Examining reports and policies on cognitive enhancement: approaches, rationale, and recommendations

The phenomenon of cognitive enhancement is attracting attention in bioethics literature and beyond, in public policy. In response, three bodies--the British Medical Association (BMA); the Commission de l'éthique de la Science et de la technologie (CEST) du Québec; the American Academy of Neurology (AAN)--have produced reports and guidance on this topic. To gain insights into different public policy approaches, rationales, and recommendations on the topic, we analyzed these reports in depth. We found convergence on the definition (with the exception of the CEST) of cognitive enhancement. However, we noted a lack of critical reflection with respect to the underlying rationale for developing these reports, i.e., that cognitive enhancement practices are rampant and represent major social changes. As it currently stands, cognitive enhancement is constituted in a way that challenges the creation of coherent and effective policy recommendations. However, policy makers should not simply wait for definitional consensus and hope that on balance the benefits turn out to be greater than the risks. Some components of cognitive enhancement could be reduced down to clearly identified policy targets to be further examined. Then, if appropriate, policy should be created that is, amongst other criteria, beneficial to the majority of the population.     

The individual rationality of maintaining a sense of justice

Let us say that an individual possesses aprincipled preference if she prefers satisfying her preferences without violating the principles of justice governing her community to satisfying her preferences by violating these principles. Although living among possessors of principled preferences benefits individuals, maintaining such a preference is individually costly. Further, individuals can benefit from others possessing principled preferences without themselves possessing one. In this paper, I argue that occupying a choice situation which mirrors key aspects of our own situation, maximizing rationality requires individuals to develop and maintain principled preferences.To establish that maintaining a principled preference is individually rational for the occupants of such a choice situation, I define a range of individual strategies for them, model their choice of individual strategies as a game, and argue that this game involves an equilibrium in which all of its participants would choose to develop and maintain a principled preference.     

Designing fractional two-level experiments with nested error structures

A common feature of experiments with a random blocking factor and splitplot experiments is their nested error structure. This paper proposes a general strategy to handle fractional two-level experiments with such error structures. The strategy aims to create error strata with sufficient numbers of contrasts to separate active effects from inactive effects. The strategy also details the construction of treatment generators, given the constraints of a predetermined error structure. The key elements of the strategy are illustrated with a chemical experiment that has 16 factors and 32 runs blocked according to working days, and a cheese-making experiment that has 11 factors and 128 runs, divided over milk supplies as whole plots, curds productions as subplots and sets of identically treated cheeses as sub-subplots.     

Changing Workplaces to Reduce Work-Family Conflict: Schedule Control in a White-Collar Organization

Work-family conflicts are common and consequential for employees, their families, and work organizations. Can workplaces be changed to reduce work-family conflict? Previous research has not been able to assess whether workplace policies or initiatives succeed in reducing work-family conflict or increasing work-family fit. Using longitudinal data collected from 608 employees of a white-collar organization before and after a workplace initiative was implemented, we investigate whether the initiative affects work-family conflict and fit, whether schedule control mediates these effects, and whether work demands, including long hours, moderate the initiative's effects on work-family outcomes. Analyses clearly demonstrate that the workplace initiative positively affects the work-family interface, primarily by increasing employees' schedule control. This study points to the importance of schedule control for our understanding of job quality and for management policies and practices.     

A case–control study relating railroad worker mortality to diesel exhaust exposure using a threshold regression model

A case–control study of lung cancer mortality in U.S. railroad workers in jobs with and without diesel exhaust exposure is reanalyzed using a new threshold regression methodology. The study included 1256 workers who died of lung cancer and 2385 controls who died primarily of circulatory system diseases. Diesel exhaust exposure was assessed using railroad job history from the US Railroad Retirement Board and an industrial hygiene survey. Smoking habits were available from next-of-kin and potential asbestos exposure was assessed by job history review. The new analysis reassesses lung cancer mortality and examines circulatory system disease mortality. Jobs with regular exposure to diesel exhaust had a survival pattern characterized by an initial delay in mortality, followed by a rapid deterioration of health prior to death. The pattern is seen in subjects dying of lung cancer, circulatory system diseases, and other causes. The unique pattern is illustrated using a new type of Kaplan–Meier survival plot in which the time scale represents a measure of disease progression rather than calendar time. The disease progression scale accounts for a healthy-worker effect when describing the effects of cumulative exposures on mortality.     

The dilemmas of embodied symbolic representation: Regret in contemporary American tattoo narratives

Numerous scholars have argued that we are currently in a post “tattoo renaissance” era wherein the practice has increasingly become a legitimate art form accepted by the American middle class. In order to facilitate this cultural transition, tattooed people legitimize their own tattoos through various narratives that ascribe deep semantic meaning to their images and words. Pulling from twenty-two in-depth interviews with tattoo removal clinicians, tattoo artists, people who regret at least one of their current tattoos, and people who have had their tattoos removed or altered, this paper contributes to the literature on the meaning and significance of tattoos in the lives of 21st century Americans. In particular, we aim to showcase that, in the current cultural context, wherein people feel a need to justify their tattoos with a level of profound symbolic meaning, tattoo regret abounds in a form distinct from that of previous generations. Drawing from a post-structuralist framework which understands tattoos as symbols, we discuss tattoo narratives as pervasive normative expectations and explore how people face potential dilemmas when they lack them, as well as when they subscribe static and absolute meanings to the words and images depicted in their body art. These narratives, and accordingly the tattoos themselves, become problematic as a result of the inability of tattoos to function beyond their capacity as symbolic representations. When people cannot reconcile or transcend the dynamic and relative nature of their tattoos’ symbolic meanings, they feel regretful and sometimes opt for tattoo cover-ups or removals.