Universal values contextualization and bioethics knowledge production in the age of genetics

The impact of biotechnology on all living things is an interdisciplinary inquiry into some of humanity’s most fundamental questions: Who are we? How do we live together? How do we relate to the biosphere, to the rest of the living world? Are the answers given to these questions shaped by various contexts: social, cultural, economic, so on? Are there universal answers to these questions? Choosing this interdisciplinary field of knowledge production as object of inquiry offers an opportunity to investigate how traditional theories and disciplines are challenged to evolve in new directions as a response to techno-scientific developments of our times. It also allows us to study patterns of knowledge production, to examine hierarchies of knowledge and expertise, as well as the possibilities of interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary practices in a multicultural context. I will argue that a framework that incorporates universal principles shall constitute one dimension of an adequate ethical theory in the context of new genetics providing that its principles are formulated in non-exclusionary terms that reflect the relational context of individual lives. As Judith Butler has formulated »the problem is not with the universality, as such, but with an operation of universality that fails to be responsive to cultural particularity and fails to undergo a reformulation of itself in response to social and cultural conditions it includes within the scope of its applicability. When a universal appropriated or when …it must be refused, the universal precept itself becomes a site of contest, a theme and an object of democratic debate« (Butler, 2006, p. 6). What both feminist and critical bioethicists emphasize in connection with universalistic claims in bioethics is the necessity of refl ectivity upon such norms and concepts. Habermas also concludes that sociological reservations offer salutary corrections to normativism, but these critiques do not condemn normative theories to failure by social complexity. According to Habermas, purely normative considerations retain their relevance as long as we accept that complex societies shape themselves in a refl exive manner through law and politics (Habermas, 2008, p. 276). The selective readings of norms that have the grammatical form of universal statements but at the semantic level are vulnerable to particularistic interpretations of their basic concepts, such as persons, human being, call for an empirical explanation (Habermas, 2008, p. 285). Taken all these into account, and noting that the issues that are at stake in the ethical debates on the applications of various biotechnologies and genetics can deeply affect the ways we perceive us as humans, our relationships with others, and with the environment it would be more than desirable that in these debates a plurality of approaches to be represented, as this is stipulated in the three UNESCO Declarations on Bioethics

Arc-flash analysis of utility power systems

The electric utility business is an inherently dangerous area to work in with employees exposed to many potential hazards daily. One such hazard is an arc flash. An arc flash is a rapid release of energy, referred to as incident energy, caused by an electric arc. Due to the random nature and occurrence of an arc flash, one can only prepare and minimize the extent of harm to themself, other employees and damage to equipment due to such a violent event. Effective January 1, 2009 the National Electric Safety Code (NESC) requires that an arc-flash assessment be performed by companies whose employees work on or near energized equipment to determine the potential exposure to an electric arc. To comply with the NESC requirement, Minnesota Power’s (MP’s) current short circuit and relay coordination software package, ASPEN OneLinerTM and one of the first software packages to implement an arc-flash module, is used to conduct an arc-flash hazard analysis. At the same time, the package is benchmarked against equations provided in the IEEE Std. 1584-2002 and ultimately used to determine the incident energy levels on the MP transmission system. This report goes into the depth of the history of arc-flash hazards, analysis methods, both software and empirical derived equations, issues of concern with calculation methods and the work conducted at MP. This work also produced two offline software products to conduct and verify an offline arc-flash hazard analysis

Assisted auscultation : creation and visualization of high dimensional feature spaces for the detection of mitral regurgitation

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, June 2006."May 2006."Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-84).Cardiac auscultation, listening to the heart using a stethoscope, often constitutes the first step in detection of common heart problems. Unfortunately, primary care physicians, who perform this initial screening, often lack the experience to correctly evaluate what they hear. False referrals are frequent, costing hundreds of dollars and hours of time for many patients. We report on a system we have built to aid medical practitioners in diagnosing Mitral Regurgitation (MR) based on heart sounds. Our work builds on the "prototypical beat" introduced by Syed in [17] to extract two different feature sets characterizing systolic acoustic activity. One feature set is derived from current medical knowledge. The other is based on unsupervised learning of systolic shapes, using component Analysis. Our system employs self-organizing maps (SOMs) to depict the distribution of patients in each feature space as labels within a two-dimensional colored grid. A user screens new patients by viewing their projections onto the SOM, and determining whether they are closer in space, and thus more similar, to patients with or without MR. We evaluated our system on 46 patients. Using a combination of the two feature sets, SOM-based diagnosis classified patients with accuracy similar to that of a cardiologist.by Daniel Demeny Leeds.M.Eng

Building Protein Domain Based Composite Biobricks for Mammalian Expression Systems

The purpose of this RFC is to describe a method that allows the design of protein domain based parts, starting with gene centered information and translate these informations into BBF RFC 25 compatible part. The method is designed to be used in mammalian expression systems

Veštaško razmnožavanje i reproduktivne osobine čikova (Misgurnus Fossilis)

U našem istraživanju je dvanaest ženki i osam mužjaka čikova veštački reprodukovano pre sezone mresta. Riba je uneta u laboratorijske tankove u rano proleće i ženke su tretirane sa 10 mg/kg telesne težine sa CP (ekstrakt hipofize šarana), dok su mužjaci hipofizirani sa 5mg/kg telesne težine radi izazivanja ovulacije i spermijacije. Ženke su ovulirale u narednih 18 do 24 časa i posle istiskivanja jaja su bila oplođena. Vrednosti pseudogonadosomatskog indeksa PGSIkod 4 ženke veoma su varirale (3.6 – 22.2%), stopa oplođenja je varirala od 30.34 do 93.81 % posle 24 časa od oplođenja. Tri dana po oplođenju larve su se izvalile (14.84-91.8%) i započele sa prvom egzogenom hranom šestog dana. Čikov se može razmnožavati kao i šaranske vrste u mrestilištima, jedina poteškoća je mala količina gameta. Veštačko razmnožavanje i uzgoj larvi može da pomogne u značajnom jačanju populacija, tako da bi bila moguća repopulacija već redukovanih populacijaii stvaranje novih staništakoji odgovaraju ovoj vrsti. Vijabilne larve iz interspecijske hibridizacije su se izlegle i na osnovu njihove morfologije mlađ nije ličila na hibride, što bi moglo da ukaže na sposobnost aseksualnog razmnožavanja. Genetička analiza nije pokazala genom mužjaka kod mlađi. F1R1 potomci su bili 50% tetraploidi (4n=100)i 50 % heksaploidi (6n=150). Ovo je prvi rezultat stvaranja heksaploida (broj hromozoma 150) čikova u laboratorijskim uslovima

Gajenje karaša (Carassius carassius) u ribnjacima

Uzgoj juvenilnih jedinki karaša (C. carassius) analiziran je u pet ribnjačkih objekata veličine 100 m2. Karaš je gajen u monokulturi u dva, dok je sa linjakom gajen u bikulturi u tri ribnjačka jezera. Stopa preživljavanja karaša u monokulturi iznosila je 21.15±6.86 %, a u bikulturi 47.07±16.86%. Kod linjaka je zabeležena veca stopa preživljavanja (69.33±16.76) i brži rast u odnosu na karaša. Iako je prema dobijenim rezultatima teško proceniti razlike između uzgoja u monokulturi i bikulturi, može se zaključiti da linjak nije značajan kompetitor karašu

The relevance of a digital system based on nanop particles biosensors in assessing the antioxidant potential of some foods

Image analysis is a highly topical and perspective method in biomedical research and practice that underlies the development of portable tests for the autonomous detection of external energy sources outside the laboratory. The purpose of this paper is to implement a new method of detecting antioxidants in food, based on digital image acquisition and processing, using an experimental device with a paper-based biochemical sensor, marked with silver nanoparticles. The research consisted of evaluating the antioxidant potential of some teas (no = 5) and commercial red wines (no = 5), using the LabVIEW device and the LabVIEW graphical programming environment for data processing in linear 3D regression, referencing the RGB spatial vector. The results obtained in the testing of tea and red wine varieties had the following hierarchy regarding their antioxidant concentration (expressed in μg / mL gallic equivalents): Twinings traditional afternoon black tea (10.945); Lipton Green Tea (20.450); Lipton forest fruit tea (20.450); Fares forest fruit tea (29.956); Green Tea Earl Gray (34.708) or Recaş wine (15.698); Pinot Noir Folonari wine (15.698); Chateau Malpere wine (20.450); Cabernet Souvignon wine and Fetească Neagră wine (25.203). In conclusion, we appreciate the great outlook of this fast and cheap method, which can be accessed through software installed on your laptop or smartphone, allowing you to read the result with one click, including by non-experts