1,354,989 research outputs found
Valuations of experimental designs in proteomic biomarker experiments and traditional randomised controlled trials
No full textThis article examines the shifting conditions for biomedical knowledge production by studying trends in the design of biomedical experiments. The basic premise of the study is that the very act of establishing a research design entails a process involving a series of valuations where different values are evoked, ordered, and displaced. In focus is the articulation and ordering of what counts as central values in research design for two kinds of biomedical treatment trials, namely the traditional randomised controlled trial (RCT) and the emerging new form of biomarker trials used to assess biomarker/treatment combinations (BTTs). The empirical material consists of textbooks (RCTs) and journal articles (BTTs). We ask how these materials articulate the various scientific, medical, and economic values at play. Among the differences uncovered are a difference in relation to what counts as ethical in relation to prior knowledge, differences in the flexibility in design as well as the valuation of the risk for false positives and false negatives. More broadly, the study shows how textual accounts of different ways of producing knowledge are linked to partly different valuations of ethics, flexibility, and risk as part of establishing the research design of biomedical experiments.Funding agencies:This paper reports a sub-study within the larger project `Trials of Value' where Helgesson and Lee investigate the valuations performed in the designing of different kinds of experiments in medicine and biomedicine. The project has been made possible with a grant from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. The authors want to thank Barbara Townley and Philip Roscoe as well as two anonymous reviewers for helpful and encouraging comments on earlier versions of this article. The article has furthermore benefited from comments on various occasions: the session `Clinical research in post-genomic medicine' at 4S/EASST Copenhagen, October 2012; the workshop `What price creativity? A workshop on the valuing of social/public goods' at University of St Andrews, December 2012; and the ValueS seminar within Technology and Social Change, Linkoping University. In particular, we want to acknowledge comments and encouragement by Alberto Cambrosio, Andrew Hoffman, Nicole Nelson, and Teun Zuiderent-Jerak.Trials of Value / Prövningar av värde (Helgesson & Lee
Transnacionalismo nas literaturas de língua portuguesa: entrevista com Stefan Helgesson
No full textA presente entrevista com Stefan Helgesson, Professor de Literatura do Departamento de Inglês da Universidade de Estocolmo, busca compreender como em um de seus livros, Transnationalism in Southern African Literature, o autor combina abordagens teóricas e metodológicas para comparar as literaturas africanas de língua inglesa, notadamente o caso sul-africano, com as literaturas africanas de língua portuguesa, especialmente o caso moçambicano. Além deste trabalho em específico, o autor também comenta sobre sua trajetória e outros trabalhos realizados ao longo de sua carreira
Efficiency, Welfare, and Altruism : Moral Assumptions in Economic Theory and Practice
No full textThis book focuses on two themes: how efficiency is treated in economic theory and how ethics is dealt with in economic practice. Carl-Henric Grenholm argues that economic theory might contribute to a needed revision of mainstream economic theory. Gert Helgesson analyses different efficiency concepts within mainstream economics. The main issue is how Pareto efficiency is related to values, norms, and ideology.Pareto efficiency and welfare is dealt with in another article by Gert Helgesson. The central problem here is whether the Pareto principle should be applied for practical purposes in the real world. Helgesson argues that it should not.Roland Granqvist deals with the problems related to the potential Pareto principle. His thesis is that some kinds of altruism should be included in cost-benefit analysis, e.g. concerns for other persons´health and safety. In another article, Roland Granqvist and Hans Lind discuss the "excess burden" of taxes. They argue that the general concept of excess burden has been operationalised in a questionable way. Finally, two articles deal with moral values and ethical convictions in economic practice.</p
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe 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
Eight reflections on quality in reseach
No full textTalking about quality What is quality in research? What is good research? How can we now how to practice it and how to assess it? These questions are almost impossible to answer, and they are precisely for this reason all the more important to talk about. This is, perhaps, all the more pressing in an interdisciplinary research context such as ours since we from this position are exposed to, and in contact with, many different conceptions of what counts as good quality in research. I asked the participants in the group of professors to each write a short reflection essay on the topic of quality in research. The aim with these contributions is to spark further conversations. This group at tema T was singled out not because they know the answers, they were asked to reflect on this because they represent a long experience of not knowing the answers. It is my hope and belief that these contributions here can help us elaborate our conversation about these ever-topical issues. Claes-Fredrik Helgesson, head of tema T 2012-2014Contributors to this report.Jonas Anshelm: SpelöppningBoel Berner: Konsten att skriva en bra ansökanKajsa Ellegård: Tankar kring kvalitet i forskningenClaes-Fredrik Helgesson: On being part of a conversationEricka Johnson: A Short Essay On QualityJenny Palm: Några tankar om bedömning av kvalitet och betydelsen av att delta i olika bedömningspraktikerHarald Rohracher: Research quality in the context of Tema TSteve Woolgar: A Provocation On Quality</p
Variations on the Author
No full text“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
Prevalence of syphilis infection in Mozambican women with second trimester miscarriage and women attending antenatal care in second trimester
No full textOBJECTIVES--To elucidate whether recent syphilis infection is significantly more prevalent among women with mid-trimester miscarriage than among antenatal care attenders in midtrimester pregnancy. DESIGN--Two categories of pregnant women were compared regarding serological signs of syphilis. Rapid Plasma Reagin (RPR) analyses were done in Mozambique and Veneral Disease Research Laboratory (VDRL) tests in Sweden. In case of RPR and/or VDRL positivity, Treponema pallidum haemagglutination (TPHA) and Captia Syphilis-M were performed. SETTING--A suburban antenatal care clinic and the emergency ward at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Central Hospital in Maputo, Mozambique, were studied June-August 1991. SUBJECTS--Randomly selected women seeking antenatal care in midtrimester pregnancy (N = 202) were compared with 114 women consecutively entering with clinical signs of midtrimester miscarriage. RESULTS--Among antenatal care attenders, 37/202 (18.3%), and among women with midtrimester miscarriage, 37/114 (32.5%), had syphilis confirmed with the Treponema pallidum haemagglutination test (p < 0.01). Significant titres of IgM antibodies tended to be more prevalent among women with miscarriage (7.0%) than among women attending antenatal care (4.5%), though the difference only approached statistical significance. CONCLUSION--The findings suggest a potential association between syphilis seropositivity and midtrimester miscarriage. Present findings justify more extensive studies to establish whether or not recent syphilis infection is a risk factor for midtrimester miscarriage
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
No full textWe 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
Handbook of Anglophone World Literatures
No full textThe handbook aims at charting the rich field of world literatures in English, which has become a central concept of literary theory and practice, yielding salient research results. Rather than referring to a fixed canon of great works, the goal is to understand world literature in terms of their capacity to bring new worlds and alternative wordly spaces into being
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