This paper describes issues associated with integrating the study of Ethical, Legal and Social Issues (ELSI) into ongoing scientific and technical research and describes an approach adopted by the authors for their own work with the center for nanophase materials sciences (CNMS) at the Oak Ridge national laboratory (ORNL). Four key questions are considered: (a) What is ELSI and how should it identify and address topics of interest for the CNMS? (b) What advantages accrue to incorporating ELSI into the CNMS? (...) (c) How should the integration of ELSI into the CNMS take place? (d) How should one judge the effectiveness of the activity? We conclude that ELSI research is not a monolithic body of knowledge, but should be adapted to the question at hand. Our approach focuses on junctures in the R&D continuum at which key decisions occur, avoids topics of a purely ethical nature or advocacy, and seeks to gather data in ways that permit testing the validity of generalization. Integrating ELSI into the CNMS allows dealing with topics firmly grounded in science, offers concrete examples of potential downstream applications and provides access to the scientists using the CNMS and their insights and observations. As well, integration provides the opportunity for R&D managers to benefit from ELSI insights and the potential to modify R&D agendas. Successful integration is dependent on the particular ELSI question set that drives the project. In this case questions sought to identify key choices, information of value to scientists, institutional attributes, key attributes of the CNMS culture, and alternatives for communicating results. The opportunity to consult with scientists on ELSI implications is offered, but not promoted. Finally, ELSI effectiveness is judged by observing the use to which research products are put within the CNMS, ORNL, and the community of external scholars. (shrink)

This major new book contains a collection of papers that examine the current state-of-the-art in the valuation of environmental resources. In particular, they assess the meaningfulness of environmental resource values obtained through the contingent valuation metho.

In the eukaryotic cell, DNA compaction is achieved through its interaction with histones, constituting a nucleoprotein complex called chromatin. During metazoan evolution, the different structural and functional constraints imposed on the somatic and germinal cell lines led to a unique process of specialization of the sperm nuclear basic proteins (SNBPs) associated with chromatin in male germ cells. SNBPs encompass a heterogeneous group of proteins which, since their discovery in the nineteenth century, have been studied extensively in different organisms. However, the (...) origin and controversial mechanisms driving the evolution of this group of proteins has only recently started to be understood. Here, we analyze in detail the histone hypothesis for the vertical parallel evolution of SNBPs, involving a “vertical” transition from a histone to a protamine‐like and finally protamine types (H → PL → P), the last one of which is present in the sperm of organisms at the uppermost tips of the phylogenetic tree. In particular, the common ancestry shared by the protamine‐like (PL)‐ and protamine (P)‐types with histone H1 is discussed within the context of the diverse structural and functional constraints acting upon these proteins during bilaterian evolution. (shrink)

This article addresses a peculiar form of marginalization in that the marginalized text it discusses originates not in the margin but at the very center of political power. Generally ignored, sometimes quoted as an illustration, Louis XIV's Mémoires for the Instruction of the Dauphin is today rarely read and even more rarely submitted to close reading. The article discusses the reasons for this marginalization and why the text deserves more scholarly attention, including the thorny question what exactly it would mean (...) to take it seriously. I suggest that the oscillating focus of the Mémoires—shifting between the labor of state-craft and the enchantment of royal mastery, between expert analysis and god-given intuition, between (modern) instrumentalism and a (pre-modern) logic of royal glory—makes it a unique historical source for exploring constitutive tensions at the heart of absolutism. (shrink)

Basic proteins and nucleic acids are assembled into complexes in a reaction that must be facilitated by nuclear chaperones in order to prevent protein aggregation and formation of non‐specific nucleoprotein complexes. The nucleophosmin/nucleoplasmin (NPM) family of chaperones [NPM1 (nucleophosmin), NPM2 (nucleoplasmin) and NPM3] have diverse functions in the cell and are ubiquitously represented throughout the animal kingdom. The importance of this family in cellular processes such as chromatin remodeling, genome stability, ribosome biogenesis, DNA duplication and transcriptional regulation has led to (...) the rapid growth of information available on their structure and function. The present review covers different aspects related to the structure, evolution and function of the NPM family. Emphasis is placed on the long‐term evolutionary mechanisms leading to the functional diversification of the family members, their role as chaperones (particularly as it pertains to their ability to aid in the reprogramming of chromatin), and the importance of NPM2 as an essential component of the amphibian chromatin remodeling machinery during fertilization and early embryonic development. BioEssays 29: 49–59, 2007. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Volume 18, Issue 4, August 2019, Page 347-351.

Scholars studying the ethical, legal, and social issues associated with emerging technologies maintain the importance of considering these issues throughout the research and development cycle, even during the earliest stages of basic research. Embedding these considerations within the scientific process requires communication between ELSI scholars and the community of physical scientists who are conducting that basic research. We posit that this communication can be effective on a broad scale only if it links societal issues directly to characteristics of the emerging (...) technology that are relevant to the physical and natural scientists involved in research and development. In this article, we examine nano-ELSI literature from 2003 to 2010 to discern the degree to which it makes these types of explicit connections. We find that, while the literature identifies a wide range of issues of societal concern, it generally does so in a non-specific manner. It neither links societal issues to particular forms or characteristics of widely divergent nanotechnologies nor to any of the many potential uses to which those nanotechnologies may be put. We believe that these kinds of specificity are essential to those engaged in nano-scale research. We also compare the literature-based findings to observations from interviews we conducted with nanoscientists and conclude that ELSI scholars should add technical- and application-related forms of specificity to their work and their writings to enhance effectiveness and impact in communicating with one important target audience—members of the nanoscale science community. (shrink)

This article asks under what circumstances controversial technologies would be considered seriously for remediation instead of being rejected out of hand. To address this question, the authors developed a conceptual framework called public acceptability of controversial technologies. PACT considers site-specific, decision-oriented dialogues among the individuals and groups involved in selecting or recommending hazardous waste remediation technologies. It distinguishes technology acceptability, that is, a willingness to consider seriously, from technology acceptance, the decision to deploy. The framework integrates four dimensions: an acceptability (...) continuum that underlies decision-oriented dialogues among individuals and constituency groups, the attributes of these individuals and groups, the attributes of the technology at issue, and the community context—social, institutional, and physical. This article describes and explores PACT as a tool for understanding and better predicting the acceptability of controversial technologies. (shrink)

Objective To develop an ethically, legally, and clinically appropriate ventilator allocation policy for AdventHealth Tampa and AdventHealth Carrollwood in Tampa, Florida, which could be enacted swiftly during the Covid-19 pandemic. Methods During Spring 2020, a subcommittee of the Medical Ethics Committee established consensus on the fundamental principles of the policy, then built on existing ethical, legal, and clinical guidance. Results The plan was finalized in May 2020. The plan triages patients based on exclusion criteria, prognosis and expected benefit of ventilation, (...) and change in prognosis over time. Decisions are made by committee in order to minimize moral distress among individual patient care providers. Conclusions Due to international concerns about healthcare resource shortages during the Covid-19 pandemic, hospitals need allocation policies informed by the crisis standard of care, the hospital’s ethical duty to plan for an emergency, and federal civil rights laws Policy Implications: This type of policy can serve as a model for other institutions to develop crisis standards of care resource allocation policies, which are a necessary component of disaster planning. (shrink)

Vauvenargues is one of those authors we think we know without having read. Sidelined among the minor moralists, the texts he published are rarely considered rigorous and powerful. Hence we are endebted to Laurent Bove for having taken this thought seriously, and for having systematically brought into relief its most striking intellectual aspects. Vauvenargues himself asked his readers to “read slowly” (“lire doucement”)—a reading ethic that has finally been followed to the letter. Pascal also sought the right rhythm of reading, (...) but not without a certain anxiety over an exaggerated slowness: “when one reads too fast or too slowly, one understands nothing.” In a brief and dense work, Bjornstad Hall finds a rhythm in .. (shrink)