1,720,985 research outputs found
Ethical concerns in rescue robotics: a scoping review
No full textRescue operations taking place in disaster settings can be fraught with ethical challenges. Further ethical challenges will likely be introduced by the use of robots, which are expected to soon become commonplace in search and rescue missions and disaster recovery efforts. To help focus timely reflection on the ethical considerations associated with the deployment of rescue robots, we have conducted a scoping review exploring the relevant academic literature following a widely recognized scoping review framework. Of the 429 papers identified by the first screening, six fulfilled the selection criteria of our literature review. Quantitative data synthesis showed that a subset of the papers includes a qualitative experimental exploration of the ethical issues at hand, with workshops involving both experts and potential users. Most use simulations or scenarios to anticipate the ethical implications and other consequences of using robots in search and rescue missions. Qualitative text analysis identified seven core ethically relevant themes: fairness and discrimination; false or excessive expectations; labor replacement; privacy; responsibility; safety; trust. Our results suggest that the literature on ethics in rescue robotics is scant and disparate, but the papers identified uniformly endorsed a proactive approach to handling the ethical concerns associated with the use of robots in disaster scenarios
Genetic ties: Dangerous relationships? Processing the genetic information of the deceased in the Italian regulatory framework. General lines and case report
No full textAs the results of genetic testing can provide important information on disease risk, healthcare facilities and professionals are increasingly being asked to provide genetic information of deceased individuals. In such circumstances, the right to confidentiality of the deceased and the right of third parties to access genetic information need to be balanced, in order to provide a concrete assessment of which of the rights at stake deserves protection, and to what extent. An analysis of the relevant regulations shows that the Italian regulatory framework is not devoid of interpretive ambiguity. At the same time, however, it offers interesting starting points for reflection on the type of protection to be accorded to deceased individuals and their genetic information. By reviewing recent court decisions and real cases, the authors aim to illustrate emerging rules in the management of access to genetic information for diagnostic and/or predictive purposes, and to highlight the issues that remain to be clarified
Towards Ethics Training in Disaster Robotics: Design and Usability Testing of a Text-Based Simulation
No full textRescue robots are expected to soon become commonplace at disaster sites, where they are increasingly being deployed to provide rescuers with improved access and intervention capabilities while mitigating risks. The presence of robots in operation areas, however, is likely to carry a layer of additional ethical complexity to situations that are already ethically challenging. In addition, limited guidance is available for ethically informed, practical decision-making in real-life disaster settings, and specific ethics training programs are lacking. The contribution of this paper is thus to propose a tool aimed at supporting ethics training for rescuers operating with rescue robots. To this end, we have designed an interactive text-based simulation. The simulation was developed in Python, using Tkinter, Python's de-facto standard GUI. It is designed in accordance with the Case-Based Learning approach, a widely used instructional method that has been found to work well for ethics training. The simulation revolves around a case grounded in ethical themes we identified in previous work on ethical issues in rescue robotics: Fairness and discrimination, false or excessive expectations, labor replacement, safety, and trust. Here we present the design of the simulation and the results of usability testing
Sudden shift to remote genetic counseling during the COVID-19 pandemic: Experiences of genetics professionals in Italy
No full textThe 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has rendered in-person provision of genetic counseling impossible for prolonged periods in many countries, mandating a sudden shift to remote delivery. We used qualitative thematic analysis to explore Italian genetics professionals’ experience with remote genetic counseling. Fourteen group and four individual interviews were conducted after participants had delivered one or more remote sessions via videoconference or on the telephone. Data were coded and grouped under themes. Three main themes were identified as follows: (a) technical and logistical issues, (b) communication issues, and (c) clinical content and outcome of the session. The participants acknowledged that not having to travel to the clinic saves consultands time and expense. They also highlighted that not sharing a physical space with consultands and having to rely on technology can negatively impact on effective communication, building trusting relationships, and performing accurate psychosocial assessments. Regarding the clinical content of sessions, remote genetic counseling was perceived to favor greater focus and succinct, to the point communication. However, participants also felt uncomfortable not being able to use visual aids to support the explanation of complex concepts. Moreover, demographics and the socio-cultural status of consultands emerged as factors influencing the outcome of remote genetic counseling sessions. Finally, participants reported feeling that more experience with this novel approach would improve their confidence and their ability to adapt their counseling skills as appropriate. Based on these findings, we suggest that effective, equitable provision of remote genetic counseling will require an infrastructure that is able to support video counseling, sharing of clinical documents and visual aids, and connect with a wide range of devices. Moreover, the structure of sessions should be tailored to the specific requirements of remote genetic counseling and suitable training efforts should be promoted to enhance professionals’ communication skills
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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