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Animals Aiding Justice: The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Ensuing Neurobehavioral Impacts as a Case Study for Using Animal Models in Toxic Tort Litigation
No full textFollowing environmental disasters, like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, many affected individuals are left with litigation as their only route for monetary recovery. When the damages include illness or injury from exposure to toxic substances, demonstrating causation is challenging. This obstacle is exacerbated by courts’ frequent unjustified exclusion of animal model studies. This dissertation uses the Deepwater Horizon oil spill as a case study to illustrate how and why we should expand the use of animal model studies as evidence of causation in toxic tort litigation to further the goal of justice.This dissertation describes the rules of scientific evidence admissibility, how animal model studies are viewed by practitioners in the field, and explains that animal studies are often unjustifiably deemed inadmissible. It continues to then articulate the many form and function similarities in the exposure system (respiratory system) and an oil-impacted system (nervous system) between humans and a model animal, Zebrafish (Danio rerio) in support of animal models aiding justice in toxic tort litigation. Further, this dissertation explains the behavioral assays that are employed in the experiments reported and how the combination of oil exposure and these assays are effective at targeting nervous system endpoints following crude oil exposure. One set of experiments reported employs startle response and habituation behavioral assays as well as neuromast staining and imaging demonstrating oil-induced impacts to the nervous system. The startle response was found to exhibit a clear dose/concentration response and to be among the most sensitive endpoints measured in fish following oil exposure. In a second set of experiments, I then show neurobehavioral impacts in larval zebrafish following parental oil exposure, like those reported in humans following exposure to oil and harmful components in oil, chiefly, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Finally, I propose what I believe to be an effective path forward to further tort law’s aim for justice.</p
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Get PDF“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
Get PDFWe 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
Vermin of Proof: Arguments for the Admissibility of Animal Model Studies as Proof of Causation in Toxic Tort Litigation
Get PDFToxic torts is a body of law that aims to compensate individuals for harms they suffer from exposure to hazardous substances. To successfully bring a toxic tort claim, a plaintiff must prove the main elements of a general tort cause of action: duty, breach, causation, and damages. Causation in a toxic tort case is particularly challenging to prove given the nature of toxic substances. To prove the toxicant in question caused the damages alleged, plaintiffs often present expert testimony based on scientific studies. Animal model studies, in particular, can help factfinders understand the health implications of the toxicants at issue. However, judges, scholars, and other legal professionals are skeptical of the use of animal studies because of scientific and legal concerns, which range from interspecies disparities to prejudice of juries. These concerns are either unfounded or exaggerated. Animal model studies can be both reliable and relevant in toxic tort cases. Given the Federal Rules of Evidence, case law relevant to scientific evidence, and one of the goals of tort law-justice-judges should more readily admit these types of studies as evidence to help plaintiffs meet the burden of proof in toxic tort litigation
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe 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
Vermin of Proof: Arguments for the Admissibility of Animal Model Studies as Proof of Causation in Toxic Tort Litigation
No full textToxic torts is a body of law that aims to compensate individuals for harms they suffer from exposure to hazardous substances. To successfully bring a toxic tort claim, a plaintiff must prove the main elements of a general tort cause of action: duty, breach, causation, and damages. Causation in a toxic tort case is particularly challenging to prove given the nature of toxic substances. To prove the toxicant in question caused the damages alleged, plaintiffs often present expert testimony based on scientific studies. Animal model studies, in particular, can help factfinders understand the health implications of the toxicants at issue. However, judges, scholars, and other legal professionals are skeptical of the use of animal studies because of scientific and legal concerns, which range from interspecies disparities to prejudice of juries. These concerns are either unfounded or exaggerated. Animal model studies can be both reliable and relevant in toxic tort cases. Given the Federal Rules of Evidence, case law relevant to scientific evidence, and one of the goals of tort law-justice-judges should more readily admit these types of studies as evidence to help plaintiffs meet the burden of proof in toxic tort litigation
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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