Access to care: leveraging dental education.

If it is not a naïve expectation for dentists who have been beneficiaries of public generosity to share their good fortune with the public that made it possible, there may be a rational basis for enhancing the role of dental education in improving access to oral health care by promoting-but not requiring-a voluntary service commitment after graduation commensurate with the magnitude of the subsidy received. Such an approach would be in accordance with the Institute of Medicine's report Improving Access to Oral Health Care for Vulnerable and Underserved Populations, but without the governmental coercion explicit in the report. A sustainable alternative proposal is made here, offering both greater options to students in the financing of their dental education and greater obligations for those students who accept state subsidies: providing tuition discounts for students of state-supported dental schools based not on past residency status but rather on a future commitment to public service.

Commentary: Less is better: lessons from the New York University-Mount Sinai merger.

Elsewhere in this issue, Kastor details the merger and demerger of New York University (NYU) and Mount Sinai hospitals and medical schools. Academic medical center mergers are difficult endeavors to execute under optimal circumstances. The failure of the NYU-Mount Sinai merger was inevitable on the basis of preexisting cultural distinctions, lack of substantial faculty and staff support, and the inability to generate significant early accomplishments that were meaningful to the respective constituencies.

European multicenter evaluation of high-density DNA probe arrays for detection of hepatitis B virus resistance mutations and identification of genotypes.

Polymorphisms along the hepatitis B virus (HBV) genome have an impact on disease outcome, sensitivity to antiviral treatment, escape from vaccination, and laboratory diagnosis. We have designed a diagnostic tool based on duplex amplification of the whole HBV genome and a high-density DNA chip designed to detect 245 mutations, 20 deletions, and 2 insertions at 151 positions and to determine the genotype of the virus in serum. Assay performances were evaluated with 170 samples, characterized by determination of viral load and sequencing of the Pol, S, and precore genes and the basal core promoter.

Towards the conscientious development of ethical nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology, the emerging capability of human beings to observe and organize matter at the atomic level, has captured the attention of the federal government, science and engineering communities, and the general public. Some proponents are referring to nanotechnology as "the next technological revolution". Applications projected for this new evolution in technology span a broad range from the design and fabrication of new membranes, to improved fuel cells, to sophisticated medical prosthesis techniques, to tiny intelligent machines whose impact on humankind is unknowable.

Eight-dimensional methodology for innovative thinking about the case and ethics of the Mount Graham, Large Binocular Telescope project.

This paper introduces the Eight Dimensional Methodology for Innovative Thinking (the Eight Dimensional Methodology), for innovative problem solving, as a unified approach to case analysis that builds on comprehensive problem solving knowledge from industry, business, marketing, math, science, engineering, technology, arts, and daily life. It is designed to stimulate innovation by quickly generating unique "out of the box" unexpected and high quality solutions. It gives new insights and thinking strategies to solve everyday problems faced in the workplace, by helping decision makers to see otherwise obscure alternatives and solutions.