Background: The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) formally recognized the sovereign rights of nations over their biological diversity. Implicit within the treaty is the idea that mega-biodiverse countries will provide genetic resources and grant access to them and scientists in high-income countries will use these resources and share back benefits. However, little research has been conducted on how this framework is reflected in real-life scientific practice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiological diversity in the patent system is an enduring focus of controversy but empirical analysis of the presence of biodiversity in the patent system has been limited. To address this problem we text mined 11 million patent documents for 6 million Latin species names from the Global Names Index (GNI) established by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and Encyclopedia of Life (EOL). We identified 76,274 full Latin species names from 23,882 genera in 767,955 patent documents.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis article uses data from Thomson Reuters Web of Science to map and analyse the scientific landscape for synthetic biology. The article draws on recent advances in data visualisation and analytics with the aim of informing upcoming international policy debates on the governance of synthetic biology by the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. We use mapping techniques to identify how synthetic biology can best be understood and the range of institutions, researchers and funding agencies involved.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSuccessful cognitive and behavioural therapies for anxiety disorders in separate cases of acquired brain injury and seizure disorder have been reported although evidence of efficacy is limited. This paper describes the presentation and cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) of seizure-related panic symptoms in the context of subarachnoid haemorrhage and cavernoma. Multidisciplinary clinical assessment was conducted and 12 sessions of CBT according to the model of Clark (1986) were delivered.
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