Managing the Ethical Dimensions of Brain-Computer Interfaces in eHealth: An SDLC-based Approach

A growing range of brain-computer interface (BCI) technologies is being employed for purposes of therapy and human augmentation. While much thought has been given to the ethical implications of such technologies at the ‘macro’ level of social policy and ‘micro’ level of individual users, little attention has been given to the unique ethical issues that arise during the process of incorporating BCIs into eHealth ecosystems. In this text a conceptual framework is developed that enables the operators of eHealth ecosystems to manage the ethical components of such processes in a more comprehensive and systematic way than has previously been possible. The framework’s first axis defines five ethical dimensions that must be successfully addressed by eHealth ecosystems: 1) beneficence; 2) consent; 3) privacy; 4) equity; and 5) liability. The second axis describes five stages of the systems development life cycle (SDLC) process whereby new technology is incorporated into an eHealth ecosystem: 1) analysis and planning; 2) design, development, and acquisition; 3) integration and activation; 4) operation and maintenance; and 5) disposal. Known ethical issues relating to the deployment of BCIs are mapped onto this matrix in order to demonstrate how it can be employed by the managers of eHealth ecosystems as a tool for fulfilling ethical requirements established by regulatory standards or stakeholders’ expectations. Beyond its immediate application in the case of BCIs, we suggest that this framework may also be utilized beneficially when incorporating other innovative forms of information and communications technology (ICT) into eHealth ecosystems

Large-Scale Examination of Spatio-Temporal Patterns of Drifting Fish Aggregating Devices (dFADs) from Tropical Tuna Fisheries of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans

Since the 1990s, massive use of drifting Fish Aggregating Devices (dFADs) to aggregate tropical tunas has strongly modified global purse-seine fisheries. For the first time, a large data set of GPS positions from buoys deployed by French purse-seiners to monitor dFADs is analysed to provide information on spatio-temporal patterns of dFAD use in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans during 2007-2011. First, we select among four classification methods the model that best separates at sea from on board buoy positions. A random forest model had the best performance, both in terms of the rate of false at sea predictions and the amount of over-segmentation of at sea trajectories (i.e., artificial division of trajectories into multiple, shorter pieces due to misclassification). Performance is improved via post-processing removing unrealistically short at sea trajectories. Results derived from the selected model enable us to identify the main areas and seasons of dFAD deployment and the spatial extent of their drift. We find that dFADs drift at sea on average for 39.5 days, with time at sea being shorter and distance travelled longer in the Indian than in the Atlantic Ocean. 9.9% of all trajectories end with a beaching event, suggesting that 1,500-2,000 may be lost onshore each year, potentially impacting sensitive habitat areas, such as the coral reefs of the Maldives, the Chagos Archipelago, and the Seychelles

Single-side access, isotropic resolution and multispectral 3D photoacoustic imaging with rotate-translate scanning of ultrasonic detector array

Photoacoustic imaging can achieve high-resolution three-dimensional visualization of optical absorbers at penetration depths ~ 1 cm in biological tissues by detecting optically-induced high ultrasound frequencies. Tomographic acquisition with ultrasound linear arrays offers an easy implementation of single-side access, parallelized and high-frequency detection, but usually comes with an image quality impaired by the directionality of the detectors. Indeed, a simple translation of the array perpendicularly to its median imaging plane is often used, but results both in a poor resolution in the translation direction and in strong limited view artifacts. To improve the spatial resolution and the visibility of complex structures while keeping a planar detection geometry, we introduce, in this paper, a novel rotate-translate scanning scheme, and investigate the performance of a scanner implemented at 15 MHz center frequency. The developed system achieved a quasi-isotropic uniform 3D resolution of ~170 um over a cubic volume of side length 8.5 mm, i.e. an improvement in the resolution in the translation direction by almost one order of magnitude. Dual wavelength imaging was also demonstrated with ultrafast wavelength shifting. The validity of our approach was shown in vitro. We discuss the ability to enable in vivo imaging for preclinical and clinical studies.Comment: 43 pages, 5 figure

How fisheries can support a small island economy in pandemic times: the Seychelles case

The COVID-19 pandemic has depressed the world economy to a magnitude and timeliness that could hardly be predicted by economists. Because of remoteness and a lack of resources, small island developing states (SIDS) are often considered more vulnerable than others to external shocks such as weatherization or disease. In 2020, the Republic of Seychelles has suffered a 70% collapse of foreign visitors, while tourism represents a key pillar of the economy with two thirds of its Gross Domestic Product and employment. The fishery-related industries have nonetheless resisted to this economic shock and become more prominent, with a foreign-owned tuna fleet supplying the local canning plant, main provider of private jobs and trade in the archipelago. This research attempts to forecast the economic effects of several scenarios affecting both fishing and tourism activities in a small island economy. It shows that fish-related industries can represent a resilient contributor to the domestic economy as long as natural stocks are sustainably managed

A framework for the standardisation of tropical tuna purse seine CPUE: application to the yellowfin tuna in the Indian Ocean

We revised the existing framework for tuna CPUE standardisation in light of the increasing literature that advocates the use of mixed effects models to account for the characteristics of logbook data. We apply the framework on yellowfin tuna (YFT) from the Indian Ocean, caught by the purse seine EU fleet (Spain and France) from 1984 to 2015. We used a comprehensive list of candidate covariates, including non- conventional covariates, and run exploratory models to assess the contribution of each covariate. Due to the large number of covariates, the lasso – least absolute shrinkage and selection operator- method was applied for data mining and model selection purposes. The results are two standardised YFT CPUE time series for the period 1984-2015, one for large fish caught in free-school related sets, and one for mainly juveniles caught in floating object related sets. Issues on the usefulness of highly aggregated data (low resolution: annual and fleet wide) is discussed along with the need for more detailed information on the use of dFADs, preferably at the level of a fishing trip.Preprin

16ème groupe de travail sur les thons tropicaux

This paper deals with the use of drifting fish aggregating devices (DFADs) in the Indian Ocean and of the potential interest to manage purse seine fisheries through limiting their number. Potential risks associated with a massive use of DFADs are first discussed. Based on new information on the numbers of DFADs released by the French fleet in the 2003-2014 period, this paper estimates the levels and trends of the total numbers of DFADs deployed and active at-sea. It is estimated that the total number of DFADs numbers has been increasing by about 70% since the early 2000s and that they could reach 10,500-14,500 nowadays. A good knowledge of the total numbers of DFADs is urgently needed to better estimate the fishing effort and capacity of purse seine fisheries. Future limitations in the number of DFADs could be a direct and efficient way to reduce fishing effort exerted by purse seiners and their support vessels. Following a precautionary approach, we suggest that IOTC could consider setting a cap on the number of DFADs drifting at-sea and that threshold reference levels could be based on the year 2013, at least to slow down the trend observed in the overall fishing capacity on DFADs. Such measures should be first carefully analysed by an ad hoc IOTC DFAD multidisciplinary working group to ensure their efficient implementation and to allow an improved sustainability of the concerned fisheries