Pause for Reflection…and Respect

Pause for reflection

Why such relentless phreneticism? Why, when the media consider a piece of science to be of public interest, do they invariably splash it as news for immediate consumption? Why so little insight, so few reflective or truly helpful feature articles after a pause for thought? One answer is that, along with novelty, we all need topicality (real or apparent) to attract our attention to a news story....

Respect: or, how respect for persons became respect for autonomy.

This article provides an intellectual archeology of how the term "respect" has functioned in the field of bioethics. I argue that over time the function of the term has shifted, with a significant turning point occurring in 1979. Prior to 1979, the term "respect" connoted primarily the notion of "respect for persons" which functioned as an umbrella which conferred protection to autonomous perso...

Two transcription pause elements underlie a σ70-dependent pause cycle.

The movement of RNA polymerase (RNAP) during transcription elongation is modulated by DNA-encoded elements that cause the elongation complex to pause. One of the best-characterized pause sequences is a binding site for the σ(70) initiation factor that induces pausing at a site near lambdoid phage late-gene promoters. An essential component of this σ(70)-dependent pause is the elemental pause si...

Pause Prediction from Text for Speech Synthesis with User-Definable Pause Insertion Likelihood Threshold

Predicting the location of pauses from text is an important aspect for speech synthesizers. The accuracy of pause prediction can significantly influence both naturalness and intelligibility. Pauses which help listeners to better parse the synthesized speech into meaningful units are deemed to increase naturalness and intelligibility ratings, while pauses in unexpected or incorrect locations can...

Foundation Evaluation Startup: A Pause for Reflection