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To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0114.2009.01327.x Byline: JOHN K. DAVIS (1) Abstract: Abstract Moral and legal judgments sometimes depend on personal traits in this sense: the subject offers good reasons for her judgment, but if she had a different social or ideological background, her judgment would be different. If you would judge the constitutionality of restrictions on abortion differently if you were not a secular liberal, is your judgment really based on the arguments you find convincing, or do you find them so only because you are a secular liberal? I argue that a judgment can be based on the considerations the subject claims as justification even when it depends on personal traits. Author Affiliation: (1)Department of PhilosophyCalifornia State University, Fullerton

Most discussions of medical futility try to answer the Futility Question: when is a medical procedure futile? No answer enjoys universal support. Some futility policies say that the health care provider will answer this question when the provider and patient (or surrogate decisionmaker) cannot agree. This raises the Decision Question: who has the moral authority to decide what to do in cases where futility is disputed? I look for a procedural answer to this question, an answer that does not turn on whether a given party happens to answer the Futility Question correctly. I argue that these policies get it right, the provider should decide because providers have a right of conscientious refusal that extends to refusing procedures on grounds of futility. This is a procedural answer because providers have this right even if they are sincerely mistaken about whether a procedure is futile. Keywords: conscience, conscientious refusal, futility

Dramatically extending the human lifespan seems increasingly possible. Many bioethicists object that life-extension will have Malthusian consequences as new Methuselahs accumulate, generation by generation. I argue for a Life-Years Response to the Malthusian Objection. If even a minority of each generation chooses life-extension, denying it to them deprives them of many years of extra life, and their total extra life-years are likely to exceed the total life-years of a majority who do not want life-extension. This is a greater harm to those who want extended life than the Malthusian harms to those who refuse extended life, both because losing an extra year of life is worse than enduring a year of Malthusian conditions, and because the would-be Methuselahs have more life-years at stake. Therefore, even if life-extension seems likely to cause severe overcrowding and resource shortages, that threat is not sufficient to justify society in restricting the development or avail ability of life-extension. Keywords: immortality, life-extension, Malthusian, prolongevism, prolongevity

Patients sometimes request procedures their doctors find morally objectionable. Do doctors have a right of conscientious refusal? I argue that conscientious refusal is justified only if the doctor's refusal does not make the patient worse off than she would have been had she gone to another doctor in the first place. From this approach I derive conclusions about the duty to refer and facilitate transfer, whether doctors may provide 'moral counseling,' whether doctors are obligated to provide objectionable procedures when no other doctor is available, why the moral consensus among doctors seems relevant even though it does not determine whether something is morally acceptable, and whether doctors should stay out of fields whose standard procedures they find morally unacceptable. Keywords: conscience, doctor-patient, integrity, objection, refuse

Does respect for autonomy imply respect for precedent autonomy? The principle of respect for autonomy requires us to respect a competent patient's treatment preference, but not everyone agrees that it requires us to respect preferences formed earlier by a now-incapacitated patient, such as those expressed in an advance directive. The concept of precedent autonomy, which concerns just such preferences, is problematic because it is not clear that we can still attribute to a now-incapacitated patient a preference which that patient never disaffirmed but can no longer understand. If we cannot make that attribution, then perhaps we should not respect precedent autonomy -- after all, how can you respect patient autonomy by giving patients what they no longer want, even if they never disaffirmed those wants? I argue that whether an earlier preference can still be attributed to a now-incapacitated patient depends on the reasons behind the preference, for a preference includes (and is not merely supported by) the reasons behind it. When the considerations that served as reasons no longer exist, neither does the preference which included those reasons. In particular, if the considerations that served as reasons for the patient exist only under conditions where the patient retains full mental capacity, then once that capacity is lost, so are those reasons and the preference based upon them. I use this analysis of precedent autonomy to ascertain the merits of various approaches to advance medical decisionmaking; including Nancy Rhoden's approach, approaches based on a Parfitian personal identity analysis, approaches based on soft paternalism, and approaches based on the stability and longevity of preferences. Despite the apparent absurdity of respecting patient autonomy by giving patients what they no longer prefer but have never disaffirmed, I conclude with some programmatic remarks on when and why respect for (precedent) autonomy nonetheless requires us to respect former preferences.

Research has been conducted on Pseudomonas pseudoalcaligenes JS45 that grows on nitrobenzene. The cloning of the two open frames from P. pseudoalcaligenes JS45 that encode hydroxylaminobenzene mutase enzyme has been carried out.

2-Aminomuconate 6-semialdehyde dehydrogenase from Pseudomonas pseudoalcaligenes JS45 has high amino acid sequence identity to 2-hydroxymuconic 6-semialdehyde (2-HMS) dehydrogenases, hence its ability to act on 2-HMS. Its purification revealed a single band corresponding to a molecular mass of 57 kDa. A number of aldehyde analogs can also be oxidized by the enzyme, such as 2-hydroxymuconic semialdehyde, hexaldehyde and benzaldehyde.

Abstract Background The genome of the Gram-positive, metal-reducing, dehalorespiring Desulfitobacterium hafniense DCB-2 was sequenced in order to gain insights into its metabolic capacities, adaptive physiology, and regulatory machineries, and to compare with that of Desulfitobacterium hafniense Y51, the phylogenetically closest strain among the species with a sequenced genome. Results The genome of Desulfitobacterium hafniense DCB-2 is composed of a 5,279,134-bp circular chromosome with 5,042 predicted genes. Genome content and parallel physiological studies support the cell's ability to fix N2 and CO2, form spores and biofilms, reduce metals, and use a variety of electron acceptors in respiration, including halogenated organic compounds. The genome contained seven reductive dehalogenase genes and four nitrogenase gene homologs but lacked the Nar respiratory nitrate reductase system. The D. hafniense DCB-2 genome contained genes for 43 RNA polymerase sigma factors including 27 sigma-24 subunits, 59 two-component signal transduction systems, and about 730 transporter proteins. In addition, it contained genes for 53 molybdopterin-binding oxidoreductases, 19 flavoprotein paralogs of the fumarate reductase, and many other FAD/FMN-binding oxidoreductases, proving the cell's versatility in both adaptive and reductive capacities. Together with the ability to form spores, the presence of the CO2-fixing Wood-Ljungdahl pathway and the genes associated with oxygen tolerance add flexibility to the cell's options for survival under stress. Conclusions D. hafniense DCB-2's genome contains genes consistent with its abilities for dehalogenation, metal reduction, N2 and CO2 fixation, anaerobic respiration, oxygen tolerance, spore formation, and biofilm formation which make this organism a potential candidate for bioremediation at contaminated sites.