Cathay Ming Lih Liu: Descartes' Philosophical Grounds for Algebra and Geometry (Under the direction of Alan Nelson) Though neither Descartes nor Fermat developed analytic geometry as we understand the mathematical discipline today, they each developed a different central feature of it. But history of mathematics has not explained their differences in mathematical aims and practice in terms of p...

BACKGROUND Determining eligibility for a kidney transplant is an important decision. Practice guidelines define contraindications to transplantation; however many are not evidence based. Canadian guidelines recommend that patients unlikely to survive the wait period not be evaluated. The purpose of this study was to evaluate what proportion of patients with a contraindication would survive the ...

If indigenous people are to have the legal right to hunt a particular species that other citizens are denied, then it presents a significant challenge to philosophers to explore the moral grounds that justify the special right, especially in respect to the issues of normative weight and fairness. This exploration is the subject of the current paper.

From 1929 onwards, C. I. Lewis defended the foundationalist claim that judgements of the form ‘x is probable’ only make sense if one assumes there to be a ground y that is certain (where x and y may be beliefs, propositions, or events). Without this assumption, Lewis argues, the probability of x could not be anything other than zero. Hans Reichenbach repeatedly contested Lewis’s idea, calling i...

Dichloro Diphenyl Trichloroethane or DDT, the first generation synthetic pesticide, for long had the dubious distinction of being an angel chemical against malaria vector and agricultural pests. Since its successful immediate impact in vector control, especially mosquitoes and typhus among the civilians and troops during World War II, DDT has a long history of being, including its widespread ap...

Is research aimed at preserving the fertility of cancer patients morally justified? In response to this question, some people would resoundingly answer “yes.” Many oncofertility researchers and some survivors of cancer who are now infertile would probably react this way. But others might say “no,” in particular people who worry about the just distribution of scarce resources, the risks to patie...