Life Sciences, Society and Policy最新文献

The conventional production model based on extensive use of chemical inputs such as pesticides is increasingly challenged. Organic agriculture is considered as one of the most important alternative agricultural systems to produce healthy food without any chemicals. Current models are not suitable for prediction of environmental behaviors. The current study aims to analyze the diffusion of organic agriculture to produce healthy food with the environmental sociology approach among farmers. The study was conducted using the survey research and multi-stage random sampling in Fars province, in the south of Iran. The samples included 215 farmers. The reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed by conducting a pilot study out of the main sample. The results showed that the farmers have strong attitude to the environment and are for the most part, highly intentioned to perform organic activities. Based on the results, the farmers' intention toward adoption of organic agriculture, environmental identity, and responsibility of pro-environmental behavior, and their moral norms play an important role to accept organic agricultural activities. There are also some effective factors in implementation of organic agriculture including farmers` increasing awareness about the principles of organic farming, controllability of environmental behaviors as well as their accessibility to the resources and facilities for organic farming. The study emphasized that the attitude and enhancing the knowledge do not lead to pro-environmental behaviors and organic activities directly. Using the models and environmental sociology theories is more efficient to explain pro-environmental behaviors. To this aim, some suggestions were presented to increase the adoption of organic activities and persuade the Iranian farmers to select this kind of cultivation.

Application of technologies has an important role in agricultural development. Identifying and assessing the impacts of agricultural technologies is necessary. This study aimed at assessing the impacts of laser levelling economically, socially, environmentally, and technically in the viewpoint of the agricultural experts and identifying factors determining their perception of the impacts. The study samples (151 experts) were selected using multi-stage random sampling in Fars Province, Iran. The results revealed that experts considered uniform distribution of water, using conservation tillage, facilitating agricultural activities, decreased water consumption and decrease of water wasting as the most important technical impacts of laser levelling technology. The most environmentally important impacts were the decrease of soil erosion and retention of crop residues. Experts stated the most significant social impacts as improvement in villages living conditions and sense of belonging to rural areas. Besides, an increase of income and reduction of inputs costs were among the economic impacts of laser levelling technology. According to the results, attitude towards water and soil resources conservation and environmental beliefs had the highest direct effect on individual perception toward impacts. Practical recommendations have been presented based on the results of the study.

Broad consent - the act of gaining one consent for multiple potential future research projects - sits at the core of much current genomic research practice. Since the 25th May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has applied as valid law concerning genomic research in the EU and now occupies a dominant position in the legal landscape. Yet, the position of the GDPR concerning broad consent has recently been cause for concern in the genomic research community. Whilst the text of the GDPR apparently supports the practice, recent jurisprudence contains language which is decidedly less positive. This article takes an in-depth look at the situation concerning broad consent under the GDPR and - despite the understandable concern flowing from recent jurisprudence - offers a positive outlook. This positive outlook is argued from three perspectives, each of which is significant in defining the current, and ongoing, legitimacy and utility of broad consent under the GDPR: the principled, the legal technical, and the practical.

Concern for and interest in research integrity has increased significantly during recent decades, both in academic and in policy discourse. Both in terms of diagnostics and in terms of therapy, the tendency in integrity discourse has been to focus on strategies of individualisation (detecting and punishing individual deviance). Other contributions to the integrity debate, however, focus more explicitly on environmental factors, e.g. on the quality and resilience of research ecosystems, on institutional rather than individual responsibilities, and on the quality of the research culture. One example of this is the Bonn PRINTEGER Statement. This editorial to the LSSP thematic series (article collection) entitled Addressing integrity challenges in research: the institutional dimension invites authors to contribute to the research integrity debate. Notably, we are interested in submissions addressing issues such as institutional responsibilities, changes in the research climate, duties of research managers and research performing or research funding organisations (RPOs and RFOs) as well as new approaches to integrity education.

According to surveys and opinion polls, citizens in Nordic welfare societies have positive, supportive attitudes towards medical research and biobanking. In Finland, it was expected that this would result in the active biobank participation of patients and citizens. Indeed, public support has been rhetorically utilised as a unique societal factor and advantage in the promotion of Finnish biobanks, underlining the potential Finland offers for the international biomedical enterprise. In this paper, we critically analyse the use of notions such as 'willing population' and 'engaged people' in the promotion and legitimation of biobanking. First, there is a seeming contradiction between positive attitudes and actual participation rates, as biobanks have faced unexpected challenges in participant recruitment during the first years of their operations. As a result, the concept of a willing population was redirected to problematise the necessity of informed consent. Second, we question whether it is even meaningful to assume the existence of an informed and engaged population with regard to biobanking. Therefore, we suggest that it is problematic to talk about a willing population at the same time as the relevance of the informed consent system is being questioned by biobank actors and policy makers. We analyse this tension in relation to existing data on Finnish people's attitudes, pointing out that positive, supportive views do not directly transform into high participation rates; nor do they justify the claims of policy makers and biobank proponents that people are willing to participate, when in fact surveys report that people know very little about biobanks.

In Western countries, a social trend toward delaying childbearing has been observed in women of reproductive age for the last two decades. This delay is due to different factors related to lifestyle, such as the development of a professional career or the absence of the right partner. As a consequence, women who defer childbearing may find themselves affected by age-related infertility when they decide to conceive. Fertility preservation techniques are, therefore, proposed as a solution for these women. Among all possible solutions, social freezing is an alternative strongly discussed from a scientific, social and ethical point of view.A survey among 930 female students at the University of Padova (Italy) investigated their knowledge and attitudes on social egg freezing and their potential intentions regarding this procedure. To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the level of awareness of age-related infertility in Italian young women and their attitudes regarding acceptable indications for elective oocyte freezing, their potential personal use, the circumstances in which they would then decide to use cryopreserved eggs, and their attitudes towards cost coverage and oocyte donation.Data collected in this study revealed some important points about young women and their knowledge about social oocyte freezing in Italy as compared to other European countries and the United States.Overall, 34.3% of the students reported having heard about the possibility of oocyte cryopreservation for non-medical reasons and being aware of the meaning of this procedure; only 19.5% were in favour of social egg freezing and 48.4% thought that the cost for this procedure should be borne entirely by the woman herself. Regarding egg donation, the majority of students (64.9%) would not accept donating their eggs to a known woman or couple and 42.5% would instead accept donating to a biobank.Our study shows that young Italian women are significantly less aware of age-related decline in fertility and the possibility of using social egg freezing compared to their similarly situated counterparts in other Western countries.

Contemporary infectious disease surveillance systems aim to employ the speed and scope of big data in an attempt to provide global health security. Both shifts - the perception of health problems through the framework of global health security and the corresponding technological approaches - imply epistemological changes, methodological ambivalences as well as manifold societal effects. Bringing current findings from social sciences and public health praxis into a dialogue, this conversation style contribution points out several broader implications of changing disease surveillance. The conversation covers epidemiological issues such as the shift from expert knowledge to algorithmic knowledge, the securitization of global health, and the construction of new kinds of threats. Those developments are detailed and discussed in their impacts for health provision in a broader sense.

The emergence of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) science movements is becoming a topic widely discussed in academia and policy, as well as by the general public and the media. While DIY approaches enjoy increasing diffusion even in official research, different social actors frequently talk about them in different ways and circumstances. Interaction and negotiation processes amongst actors (e.g. policy makers and DIY communities) define the premises upon which different conceptualisations of DIY science are deployed.In this paper we offer a framework for analysing the discourse on DIY science.Our study consists of a field research of three spaces active in DIY science premises, two dedicated events of the DIY community, and an auto-ethnography in the field of DIY biology.By relying on the theory of social worlds/arenas (SW/A), we collected data on how notions of DIY science are constructed by different social actors and how conceptual borders are built or are likely to shift, resulting in multiple possible SW/A mappings. We conclude that each and every conceptualisation of DIY science cannot stand independently from the situatedness of its multiple contexts, therefore making its usage in policy making and governance particularly complex.

Critics of the use of advanced biotechnologies in the agri-food sector ("New Breeding Techniques", comprising CRISPR) demand a strict regulation of any such method, even more severe than rules applied to so-called "Genetically Modified Organisms" (i.e. recombinant DNA processes and products). But their position is unwarranted, since it relies on faulty arguments.While most life scientists have always explained that the trigger for regulation should be the single product and its phenotypic traits, opponents insist that the target should be certain biotech processes.The antagonists maintain that NBTs are inherently risky: this belief is exactly the opposite of a long-standing, overwhelming scientific consensus. NBTs involve unpredictable effects, but it is the same for the results of any other technique. The critics wrongly equate "unintended" with "harmful" and misunderstand two meanings of "risk": the "risk" of not achieving satisfactory results does not automatically translate into health or environment "risks". Generic claims that allergenic or toxic properties are a hidden danger of outcomes from NBTs are unsubstantiated - as they would be for traditional techniques.Among several errors, we criticize the misuse of the Precautionary principle, a misplaced alarm about "uncontrolled spreading" of genetically engineered cultivars and the groundless comparison of (hypothetical) agricultural products from NBTs with known toxic substances.In order to "save" traditional techniques from "GMO"-like regulations, while calling for the enforcement of similar sectarian rules for the NBTs, the dissenters engage in baseless, unscientific distinctions.Important and necessary socio-economic, ethical and legal considerations related to the use of agri-food biotechnologies (older and newer) are outside the scope of this paper, which mostly deals with arguments from genetics, biology, and evolutionary theory that are provided by those who are suspicious of NBTs. Yet, we will provide some hints on two additional facets of the debate: the possible motivations for certain groups to embrace views which are utterly anti-scientific, and the shaky regulatory destiny of NBTs in the European Union.