Anamika Chatterjee

The US neutrino community gathered at the Workshop on the Intermediate Neutrino Program at Brookhaven National Laboratory February 4-6, 2015 to explore opportunities in neutrino physics over the next five to ten years. Scientists from particle, astroparticle and nuclear physics participated in the workshop. The workshop examined promising opportunities for neutrino physics in the intermediate term, including possible new small to mid-scale experiments, US contributions to large experiments, upgrades to existing experiments, R&D plans and theory. The workshop was organized into two sets of parallel working group sessions, divided by physics topics and technology. Physics working groups covered topics on Sterile Neutrinos, Neutrino Mixing, Neutrino Interactions, Neutrino Properties and Astrophysical Neutrinos. Technology sessions were organized into Theory, Short-Baseline Accelerator Neutrinos, Reactor Neutrinos, Detector R&D and Source, Cyclotron and Meson Decay at Rest sessions.This report summarizes discussion and conclusions from the workshop.

Background Precision medicine is often framed in terms of technical innovation and clinical promise, while its broader ethical and societal implications receive less attention in medical training. Addressing these issues requires formats that allow participants to explore uncertainty, competing values, and governance challenges. This study examines SPARK, a scenario-based deliberative activity designed to support collective reflection on the systemic and value-laden dimensions of these technologies in educational settings. Methods We analysed qualitative and descriptive-quantitative data from two university workshops in Norway involving students in medicine and bioethics. The SPARK activity uses structured scenarios, information cards, and issue prompts to guide small-group discussions of policy and implementation dilemmas related to artificial intelligence (AI)-supported precision medicine. The analysis focused on engagement processes, examining how participants articulated trade-offs, uncertainties, and competing priorities during deliberation. Results Participants initially framed precision medicine primarily in technical and individualised terms. During the activity, discussions expanded to include ethical and societal considerations such as fairness, responsibility, and resource allocation. The deliberative structure enabled participants to articulate trade-offs and negotiate competing priorities while moving between individual and group decision stages. Rather than resolving disagreements, the activity made underlying tensions explicit and supported discussion of competing ethical considerations within a time-limited educational setting. Conclusions SPARK demonstrates how lightweight deliberative formats can support structured ethical reflection on emerging medical technologies in educational contexts. By making tensions visible and negotiable within group discussion, such formats may complement existing approaches to ethics education and help create space for engagement with the broader implications of AI-supported precision medicine.

One of the significant effects of technology on human relations is visible in friendship. Positively technology through its digital spaces is facilitating friendship that is instant and beyond the limitations of time and space. However, such digital friendships that operate through social media often suffer from issues of trust and sustainability. To resolve this predicament, we need to pause and reflect on how digital friendship can be reframed to improve its sustainability in a practical manner. The primary purpose of this article is to examine how helpful the early Buddhist concept of mittatā (friendship) is in sustaining friendship in the digital age. The article begins by eliciting the moral challenges people encounter in online friendships. The objective is to highlight the need for a more vital concept of friendship, such as the early Buddhist concept of mittatā, that can mitigate the moral concerns in digitized friendship, making it genuine and sustainable. The subsequent part of the article offers an overview of some of the significant theories of friendship upheld in the West and examines whether they can support the sustainability of a digitized friendship. The objective is to reflect upon the lacuna in the practice of such ideas of friendship in the contemporary digital age. To replenish the lacuna, the following section articulates the early Buddhist concept of mittatā as a noble concept of friendship that can be morally relevant and sustainable in this digital world. Based on the philosophical study of the early Buddhist literature, the present article investigates how helpful mettā (loving kindness) in this society to sustain a trustworthy friendship. It proposes an ethical and noble way to nurture and savour an honourable friendship relevant to the digital era by inculcating specific virtues advocated by the Buddha.