This Viewpoint formulates and responds to three lines of argument concerning human reproductive cloning's potential to undermine our sense of self or identity. First, cloning would undermine our sense of individuality or uniqueness. But it could only undermine our genetic uniqueness, not our full individuality. Second, cloning would undermine the value or worth of human beings. But it would not...

In this paper, we propose the Global Life Patterns, a methodology to support people to maintain individuality and design their own actions in respect to the “globalizing” society – a Global Life. Today, globalization requires each person to maintain individuality in respect to Globalization. Because methods to acquire such ability are tacit, a clarified methodology to live a Global Life is need...

4. Spatial Point Processes with Dependent Marks for Fingerprint Minutiae. Let xn ≡ { xi, i = 1, 2, · · · , n } denote the collection of n minutiae locations, and for each x ∈ xn, the minutiae orientation wx denotes the corresponding mark, which takes values in (0, π]. The distribution of minutiae in a fingerprint image is best described in terms of a hierarchical model involving all random enti...

Excessive weight gain arises from the interactions among environmental factors, genetic predisposition and the individual behavior. However, it is becoming evident that interindividual differences in obesity susceptibility depend also on epigenetic factors. Epigenetics studies the heritable changes in gene expression that do not involve changes to the underlying DNA sequence. These processes in...