1,721,044 research outputs found

    BIOBANKS in the Mediterranean Area

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    The collection of papers in this book is the fruits of one of the twelve workshops organized in the framework of the Tiss.Eu project founded by the European Commission. This project, which has likely been the most ambitious and comprehensive one in the field of human tissue policy research, started in 2008 and completed in 2011. During the three years of collaboration between the researchers of nine universities and research centers, different aspects of tissue collection, storage, and transfer were systematically studied: the usage of tissues and cells for non-clinical research purposes, the privacy and property rights emerging in relation to these uses, the issues of data protection, anonymisation and pseudonymisation, as well as the regulation of various types of biobanks

    IDENTIFICATION AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FIRST STRUCTURAL MODES OFVIBRATION OF TWO WHEELED VEHICLES

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    In motorcycles and scooters the structural modes of vibration are important because they influence both vehicle’s comfort and vehicle’s stability and handling. Some researchers have shown that instabilities, which may occur when the vehicle is running (weave and wobble), are influenced by the modes of vibration, of the vehicle. At the Motorcycle Dynamics Research Group of Padova University many motorcycles have been tested with the method of modal analysis. The results of this research highlight that the whole motorcycle is a complex system that shows many kinds of modes of vibration: rigid modes, in which the structural components of the vehicle (chassis, fork, handlebars) behave as rigid bodies and deflection is given by tires and suspensions; local modes, in which deflection is concentrated in some subsystem of the vehicle (e.g. handlebars) and the rest of the motorcycle behaves as a system of rigid bodies; global modes with relevant deflection of the whole vehicle. This paper focuses on a specific issue, which is important for motorcycle design: the identifications of the frequencies of the first modes that show relevant deflection of the front fork and swing-arm. First, experimental equipment and testing methods are presented and discussed. Then the modal properties (natural frequencies, damping coefficients and modal shapes) of four motorcycles of different categories are presented, the characteristics of some modes are highlighted. Finally, the paper focuses on the identification of the frequencies that represent the borderline between rigid and elastic behavior of front fork and swing-arm. A method that requires the analysis of the characteristics of a small set of frequency response functions, without carrying out a long and expensive modal analysis of the whole vehicle, is presented. It is based on the properties of rigid modes (variation in vibration amplitude along a set of measurement points)

    Use of Residual Material in Biobanking: Solidarity, Common Good, and Informed Consent

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    Biological residual materials can be obtained from surgical activities or from pathological waste material collected for analysis and stored in formalin. This material can be stored in biobanks with the purpose of future research. Formalin-fixed tissue and also formalin-fixed paraffin embedded tissues are not suitable for all kinds of genetic studies on DNA or RNA, as formalin solution is well known for damaging nucleic acids. Therefore, for the purpose of conducting genetic studies, samples should be frozen in order to maintain a good quality of DNA/RNA over time. Biobanks, in which waste samples are frozen, are undoubtedly expensive to maintain; however, it could be useful and important to consider their possible implication in particular research, regarding for example the tumor cells growth process, or when the procurement of samples is difficult. Regarding the relationship between informed consent and tissue collection, storage and research, two choices are possible: irreversible or reversible sample anonymization. These procedures involve different approaches and possible solutions that we will seek to define. Also, an important ethical aspect in regard to the role of biobanks is encouraging sample donation. For donors, seeing human sample being kept rather than discarded and seeing them become useful for research highlight the importance of the human body and improve the attitude towards donation. This process might also facilitate the giving of informed consent more trustfully and willingly

    Evaluating non-disclosure of errors and healthcare organization: a case of bioethics consultation

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    Sometimes medical errors should not be disclosed. We report a case of semen samples exchange, during a homologous artificial insemination procedure, where a bioethics consultation was required. The bioethics consultation addressed ethical and legal elements in play, supporting non-disclosure to some of the subjects involved. Through a proper methodology, gathering factual and juridical elements, a consultant can show when a moral dilemma between values and rights—privacy versus fatherhood, in our case—is unsubstantial, in a given context, because of the groundlessness of the value or the right itself. However, being the error elicited by organizational factors, a broader ethical pronouncement was needed. Under such circumstances, ethical evaluation should engage in a sort of ‘ethical-based root-cause analysis’, linking ethical principles to quality aims and showing the opportunity to integrate ethical methodology in healthcare management. From this perspective, errors may become an inc..
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