1,721,311 research outputs found
Beginning of life ethics at the dawn of a new era of genome editing: are bioethical precepts and fast-evolving biotechnologies irreconcilable?
Full text linkThe amazing and almost unimaginable advances that have unfolded over the past decades in biotechnologies (heritable germline editing in particular) have brought bioethical issues to the forefront, sparking public debate and increasing attention worldwide. Such mind-blowing progress has already resulted in major improvement and enhancements for humans, and holds the potential for even more. Technology and bioengineering have begun to take over in the life sciences industry. Man's capacity to genetically engineer the biological world is nothing short of mind-boggling in its current magnitude, and may even evolve, in a not too distant future, into attempts to fuse man and machine into a cohesive bioengineered entity; a "super human being", endowed with enhanced cognitive and physical capabilities and impervious to disease, may be not too far down the road. That will not come without caveats, however. In fact, scientific advancements at such an accelerated pace have already negatively affected our cultural, ethical, and legal values and our ability to harness the opportunities and face the dangers posed by such developments. As a matter of fact, science seems to consistently outpace public morals, ethics and policymaking, which calls for a high degree of caution and common answers
Is there anything left of the Italian law governing medically-assisted procreation?
Full text linkMedically-assisted-procreation via in vitro fertilization, an integral part of of the so-called “reproductive revolution”, is a valuable option for couples with sterility or fertility issues. That has however brought about three relevant results: the rift between procreation and sexual intercourse, the opportunity to use heterologous fertilization through donated gametes, and the ensuing increase in the number of “reproductive contributors” (male and/or female gamete donors, surrogate mothers). In Italy, Law n. 40 has put in place several restrictions, stricter than in most other European countries. Before being declared partly unconstitutional, Law 40 used to impose an array of bans and restrictions other than the ones still currently in force, such as the still unchanged prohibition to use human embryos for experimentation purposes and the ban on surrogacy. For same-sex couples who travel abroad to get around the Italian ban on heterologous fertilization, surrogacy, and MAP for homosexual couples. The authors have attempted to lay out a short analysis of how Italian courts have attempted to uphold the best interests of children born abroad in homosexual families, by taking into account the latest decisions on the subject
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
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