research in the developing countries, low literacy levels in developing countries, or inadequate health services and poor infrastructure. Despite the fact that effective legal, ethical and economic frameworks are essential to regulate the activities of research sponsors and researchers, developing countries often do not have them in place, thus the trial subjects are compromised. Whereas conducting research in developing countries may seem to favour the foreign pharmaceutical companies over the hosts and the trial groups in developing countries, the bottom line appears to be a win-win situation. Eventually, profit- driven pharmaceutical companies obtain research results at cheaper costs, while the host countries benefit from the researcher sponsors through the funding spent in development of infrastructure, construction of new health facilities and also having some of their citizens (test subjects) treated either free of charge or at a subsidised costs. Finally, the world as a whole stands to benefit when the research trials succeed, but at what cost should such research take place? This essay examines how developing countries can be empowered to counter the adverse effects of this practice. Antony Omita was a boarder in Blew House and won the Apurba Kumar Memorial Prize for the best essay in the field of medical ethics. [After leaving Dulwich College in 1995, Apurba Kumar studied Medicine at University College London for two years. Apurba died tragically in 1997 from Dengue fever on his return from working at the Bangur Institute of Neurology in Calcutta, India, and his family instituted this prize in his memory.]
Will it be possible to engineer artificial intelligence? Artificial Intelligence is a controversial and complex topic, although the benefits of successfully engineering a thinking machine would evidently be great; independent of human control, robots could carry out dangerous or complicated tasks, without the need of a human supervisor. To set about developing strong AI, one must first find a definition for intelligence, which is no easy task, as there are many views as to what truly defines intelligence. There is also no clear path to AI, and for that reason two main approaches have developed, the symbolic and connectionist approaches; one involves the manipulation of symbols, and the other involves large networks of neurons aiming to mimic the processes in the brain. Whilst progress in this area has faced difficulties, it has not yet been proven impossible and could eventually be seen to become a reality. Thomas Herbert is now reading Engineering at Trinity College, Cambridge. Is medical research the new imperialism? Today’s medical research may possibly be tomorrow’s medicine. Over the years, the number of medical research trials taking place around the world has greatly increased. A significant percentage of these research trials are based in developing countries but are conducted or sponsored by researchers from developed countries. This trend may be due to a number of reasons; fewer volunteers for trials in the developed countries, widespread diseases in developing countries that require cures, the lower cost of carrying out
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