Sacrificial utilitarian judgments do reflect concern for the greater good: Clarification via process dissociation and the judgments of philosophers.

Researchers have used "sacrificial" trolley-type dilemmas (where harmful actions promote the greater good) to model competing influences on moral judgment: affective reactions to causing harm that motivate characteristically deontological judgments ("the ends don't justify the means") and deliberate cost-benefit reasoning that motivates characteristically utilitarian judgments ("better to save more lives"). Recently, Kahane, Everett, Earp, Farias, and Savulescu (2015) argued that sacrificial judgments reflect antisociality rather than "genuine utilitarianism," but this work employs a different definition of "utilitarian judgment." We introduce a five-level taxonomy of "utilitarian judgment" and clarify our longstanding usage, according to which judgments are "utilitarian" simply because they favor the greater good, regardless of judges' motivations or philosophical commitments.

Radial growth of Pinus sylvestris growing on alluvial terraces is sensitive to water-level fluctuations.

Along the Alpine river Lech (Tyrol, Austria), poorly grown Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) stands dominate on dry alluvial terraces, which are made up of coarse calcareous gravel. Here we evaluated the impact of environmental factors, such as precipitation, temperature and water table, on annual variability of radial growth. Tree-ring chronologies from six stands comprising different age classes were developed by extracting two core samples from more than 15 trees per plot.

Coexisting proinflammatory and antioxidative endothelial transcription profiles in a disturbed flow region of the adult porcine aorta.

In the arterial circulation, regions of disturbed flow (DF), which are characterized by flow separation and transient vortices, are susceptible to atherogenesis, whereas regions of undisturbed laminar flow (UF) appear protected. Coordinated regulation of gene expression by endothelial cells (EC) may result in differing regional phenotypes that either favor or inhibit atherogenesis. Linearly amplified RNA from freshly isolated EC of DF (inner aortic arch) and UF (descending thoracic aorta) regions of normal adult pigs was used to profile differential gene expression reflecting the steady state in vivo.

Fidelity and enhanced sensitivity of differential transcription profiles following linear amplification of nanogram amounts of endothelial mRNA.

Although mRNA amplification is necessary for microarray analyses from limited amounts of cells and tissues, the accuracy of transcription profiles following amplification has not been well characterized. We tested the fidelity of differential gene expression following linear amplification by T7-mediated transcription in a well-established in vitro model of cytokine [tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFalpha)]-stimulated human endothelial cells using filter arrays of 13,824 human cDNAs. Transcriptional profiles generated from amplified antisense RNA (aRNA) (from 100 ng total RNA, approximately 1 ng mRNA) were compared with profiles generated from unamplified RNA originating from the same homogeneous pool.

The convergence of haemodynamics, genomics, and endothelial structure in studies of the focal origin of atherosclerosis.

The completion of the Human Genome Project and ongoing sequencing of mouse, rat and other genomes has led to an explosion of genetics-related technologies that are finding their way into all areas of biological research; the field of biorheology is no exception. Here we outline how two disparate modern molecular techniques, microarray analyses of gene expression and real-time spatial imaging of living cell structures, are being utilized in studies of endothelial mechanotransduction associated with controlled shear stress in vitro and haemodynamics in vivo. We emphasize the value of such techniques as components of an integrated understanding of vascular rheology.