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Present Opportunities (present + opportunity)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences50%

Selected Abstracts

ETHICAL PROBLEMS IN CONDUCTING RESEARCH IN ACUTE EPIDEMICS: THE PFIZER MENINGITIS STUDY IN NIGERIA AS AN ILLUSTRATION

DEVELOPING WORLD BIOETHICS, Issue 1 2010
EMMANUEL R. EZEOME
ABSTRACT The ethics of conducting research in epidemic situations have yet to account fully for differences in the proportion and acuteness of epidemics, among other factors. While epidemics most often arise from infectious diseases, not all infectious diseases are of epidemic proportions, and not all epidemics occur acutely. These and other variations constrain the generalization of ethical decision-making and impose ethical demands on the individual researcher in a way not previously highlighted. This paper discusses a number of such constraints and impositions. It applies the ethical principles enunciated by Emmanuel et al.1 to the controversial Pfizer study in Nigeria in order to highlight the particular ethical concerns of acute epidemic research, and suggest ways of meeting such challenges. The paper recommends that research during epidemics should be partly evaluated on its own merits in order to determine its ethical appropriateness to the specific situation. Snap decisions to conduct research during acute epidemics should be resisted. Community engagement, public notification and good information management are needed to promote the ethics of conducting research during acute epidemics. Individual consent is most at risk of being compromised, and every effort should be made to ensure that it is maintained and valid. Use of data safety management boards should be routine. Acute epidemics also present opportunities to enhance the social value of research and maximize its benefits to communities. Ethical research is possible in acute epidemics, if the potential challenges are thought of ahead of time and appropriate precautions taken. [source]

Employee ,voice' and working environment in post-communist New Member States: an empirical analysis of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS JOURNAL, Issue 4 2008
Charles Woolfson
ABSTRACT This article examines employee ,voice' in workplace health and safety in three Baltic New Member States by means of a cross-national survey. The data point to unresolved problems of voice in the context of rather poor working environments. These present opportunities for collective renewal by trade unions, but paradoxically are more likely to be addressed by employers in the context of significant labour shortages created by a post-European Union accession labour ,exit'. [source]

Using phylochronology to reveal cryptic population histories: review and synthesis of 29 ancient DNA studies

MOLECULAR ECOLOGY, Issue 7 2009
UMA RAMAKRISHNAN
Abstract The evolutionary history of a population involves changes in size, movements and selection pressures through time. Reconstruction of population history based on modern genetic data tends to be averaged over time or to be biased by generally reflecting only recent or extreme events, leaving many population historic processes undetected. Temporal genetic data present opportunities to reveal more complex population histories and provide important insights into what processes have influenced modern genetic diversity. Here we provide a synopsis of methods available for the analysis of ancient genetic data. We review 29 ancient DNA studies, summarizing the analytical methods and general conclusions for each study. Using the serial coalescent and a model-testing approach, we then re-analyse data from two species represented by these data sets in a common interpretive framework. Our analyses show that phylochronologic data can reveal more about population history than modern data alone, thus revealing ,cryptic' population processes, and enable us to determine whether simple or complex models best explain the data. Our re-analyses point to the need for novel methods that consider gene flow, multiple populations and population size in reconstruction of population history. We conclude that population genetic samples over large temporal and geographical scales, when analysed using more complex models and the serial coalescent, are critical to understand past population dynamics and provide important tools for reconstructing the evolutionary process. [source]

Learning to Eat in an Obesogenic Environment: A Developmental Systems Perspective on Childhood Obesity

CHILD DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES, Issue 2 2010
Leann L. Birch
Abstract, Currently, children are developing in an obesity-promoting, or obesogenic, environment, which has emerged within the past 3 decades. This rapid change provides a rare opportunity to investigate the phenotypic outcomes that result from the expression of human genetic predispositions in a new environment. Unfortunately, the environmental changes that have occurred are associated with epidemic obesity rates in all age groups. Using a developmental perspective, this article argues that this probabilistic outcome is not predetermined, however. The article also provides examples of learning paradigms,familiarization and associative and observational learning,that present opportunities for parents and caregivers to restructure children's environments in early life, increasing the likelihood of healthy weight-status outcomes in the context of the current obesogenic environment. [source]

Quantifying the Effects of Mask Metadata Disclosure and Multiple Releases on the Confidentiality of Geographically Masked Health Data

GEOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS, Issue 1 2008
Dale L. Zimmerman
The availability of individual-level health data presents opportunities for monitoring the distribution and spread of emergent, acute, and chronic conditions, as well as challenges with respect to maintaining the anonymity of persons with health conditions. Particularly when such data are mapped as point locations, concerns arise regarding the ease with which individual identities may be determined by linking geographic coordinates to digital street networks, then determining residential addresses and, finally, names of occupants at specific addresses. The utility of such data sets must therefore be balanced against the requirements of protecting the confidentiality of individuals whose identities might be revealed through the availability of precise and accurate locational data. Recent literature has pointed toward geographic masking as a means for striking an appropriate balance between data utility and confidentiality. However, questions remain as to whether certain characteristics of the mask (mask metadata) should be disclosed to data users and whether two or more distinct masked versions of the data can be released without breaching confidentiality. In this article, we address these questions by quantifying the extent to which the disclosure of mask metadata and the release of multiple masked versions may affect confidentiality, with a view toward providing guidance to custodians of health data sets. The masks considered include perturbation, areal aggregation, and their combination. Confidentiality is measured by the areas of confidence regions for individuals' locations, which are derived under the probability models governing the masks, conditioned on the disclosed mask metadata. [source]

Climate Science and Decision Making

GEOGRAPHY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 3 2007
Kirstin Dow
This article reviews progress in understanding climate variability and change and how such understanding might better contribute to decision processes and the design of decision support tools. We emphasize the value of collaborative engagement between climate information users and scientists to continue innovation in this area. Our assessment presents opportunities for geographic perspectives and insights that can increase understanding of the physical processes causing interannual variability and improve climate model output for climate impact assessment. As decision-makers' interests expand to address adaptation, nature-society research can also contribute significantly to understanding the diversity of climate information users, their evolving needs, and to the development of strategies for communicating risk and uncertainty. [source]