Consent and Informed Consent: Their Ongoing Evolutions in Clinical Care and Research on Humans

The dual concepts of 'consent' and 'informed consent' continue to have three evolutions. The primary evolution of consent in the patient–physician relationship began in Great Britain in 1767 in the British case, Slater v. Baker and Stapleton , in the judge-made law of consent. The term 'informed consent' within the patient–physician relationship entered the judicial lexicon in the 1957 California appellate case, Salgo v. Leland Stanford Junior University . In its second evolution within research on humans following the Nuremberg trials that included experimental atrocities on humans, there is a key focus on clarifying the purpose of research and specifying the reasons for the need for an even more extensive risk disclosure to individuals considering volunteering for study participation. This second evolution continues with the further refinement of the Declaration of Helsinki and, within the USA, a focus on the Belmont Report . In its third evolution in research in the social science, there has been a recognition of problems with informed consent to questionnaire research. When questionnaires involve patients with moderate or severe posttraumatic stress disorder or abused individuals, there needs to be intense consideration focused on how to best protect the participants with these conditions during the questionnaire study.     

Time, Self, and the Curiously Abstract Concept of Agency*

The term "agency" is quite slippery and is used differently depending on the epistemological roots and goals of scholars who employ it. Distressingly, the sociological literature on the concept rarely addresses relevant social psychological research. We take a social behaviorist approach to agency by suggesting that individual temporal orientations are underutilized in conceptualizing this core sociological concept. Different temporal foci—the actor's engaged response to situational circumstances—implicate different forms of agency. This article offers a theoretical model involving four analytical types of agency ("existential,""identity,""pragmatic," and "life course") that are often conflated across treatments of the topic. Each mode of agency overlaps with established social psychological literatures, most notably about the self, enabling scholars to anchor overly abstract treatments of agency within established research literatures.     

Gender and the 'New Paradigm' of Health

This article provides a critical review of literature on the relationship between gender and the 'new paradigm' of health. An overview of the feminist critique of health is given, from the Women's Health Movement of the late 1960s and early feminist debates about medicalisation, to more recent discussions about structural inequalities between men and women, eating disorders, and AIDS. I then go on to explore the feminist response to the so-called 'new paradigm' of health (an approach that emphasises health promotion, individual responsibility for health, and body-monitoring). Arguments that health promotion initiatives target women and confirm their position as principal guardians of health within the family are considered, as well as literature on the breast cancer awareness campaign. I then explore the growing body of literature on masculinity and health, and its account of the relationship between gender and current ideas about healthiness. Finally, I offer up some suggestions for the direction a new feminist critique of health might take.     

炎姜、姬周两后稷的时代及其代兴考

古文献中有两个不同的稷神：一个是炎姜部落烈山氏后稷柱，另一个才是姬周先祖后稷弃，二者之间为甥舅关系。炎姜部落活动的区域在陕西中部、甘肃青海的东部地区，这一地区在仰韶文化时期有半坡遗址、姜寨遗址、大地湾等遗址，作为粟黍类农作物正适合在这片土壤条件优越而环境条件良好的区域中生长，在这个新石器时期的大暖期，农业生产率先在黄土高原发展起来，并被称之为“神农氏”。从古史传说的炎帝到虞舜时代，炎姜部落世世代代担任农官“后稷”，并以炎帝烈山氏后裔柱作为农神来祭祀。不窑便“弃稷不务”，并窜于戎狄之间，以至于周先祖失其代数。夏后期“弃稷不务”的原因，是夏代气候恶化造成的。到夏代末年，先周公刘至古公的农业再次兴盛，后稷弃又再次受到商人尊祀。     

A class of count models and a new consistent test for the Poisson distribution

We define a class of count distributions which includes the Poisson as well as many alternative count models. Then the empirical probability generating function is utilized to construct a test for the Poisson distribution, which is consistent against this class of alternatives. The limit distribution of the test statistic is derived in case of a general underlying distribution, and efficiency considerations are addressed. A simulation study indicates that the new test is comparable in performance to more complicated omnibus tests.