This book bridges the divide between the fields of power systems engineering and computer communication through the new field of power system information theory. Written by an expert with vast experience in the field, this book explores the smart grid from generation to consumption, both as it is planned today and how it will evolve tomorrow. The book focuses upon what differentiates the smart grid from the "traditional" power grid as it has been known for (...) the last century. Furthermore, the author provides the reader with a fundamental understanding of both power systems and communication networking. It shows the complexity and operational requirements of the evolving power grid, the so-called "smart grid," to the communication networking engineer; and similarly, it shows the complexity and operational requirements for communications to the power systems engineer. The book is divided into three parts. Part One discusses the basic operation of the electric power grid, covering fundamental knowledge that is assumed in Parts Two and Three. Part Two introduces communications and networking, which are critical enablers for the smart grid. It also considers how communication and networking will evolve as technology develops. This lays the foundation for Part Three, which utilizes communication within the power grid. Part Three draws heavily upon both the embedded intelligence within the power grid and current research, anticipating how and where computational intelligence will be implemented within the smart grid. Each part is divided into chapters and each chapter has a set of questions useful for exercising the readers' understanding of the material in that chapter. Key Features: Bridges the gap between power systems and communications experts Addresses the smart grid from generation to consumption, both as it is planned today and how it will likely evolve tomorrow Explores the smart grid from the perspective of traditional power systems as well as from communications Discusses power systems, communications, and machine learning that all define the smart grid It introduces the new field of power system information theory. (shrink)

The production, manipulation and exploitation of future visions are increasingly important elements in practices of visioneering socio-technical processes of innovation and transformation. This becomes obvious in new and emerging science and technologies and large-scale transformations of established socio-technical systems. A variety of science and technology studies provide evidence on correlations between expectations and anticipatory practices with the dynamics of such processes of change. Technology assessment responded to the challenges posed by the influence of visions on the processes by elaborating methodologies (...) for a “vision assessment” as a contribution to what is now increasingly known as “hermeneutical TA”. But until now, the practical functions of visions in the processes have not been explained in a way that satisfies the empirical needs of TA’s vision assessment—that is to provide future-oriented knowledge based on the analysis of ongoing changes in the present without knowing the future outcomes. Our leading hypothesis is that we can only understand the practical roles of visions in current processes if we analyse them as socio-epistemic practices which simultaneously produce new knowledge and enable new social arrangements. We elaborate this by means of two cases: the visions of In Vitro meat and of the smart grid. Here, we interpret visioneering more in its collective dimension as a contingent and open-ended process, emerging from heterogeneous socio-epistemic practices. This paper aims at improving TA’s vision assessments and related STS research on visionary practices for real-time analysis and assessments. (shrink)

IEEE Vision for Smart Grid Communications: 2030 and Beyond Reference Model, directly overlays events in the power grid with communication performance on the same spacetime model, it ensures a perspective that verifies that any of the myriad of communication technologies chosen will provide the required support for the Smart Grid. For Corporate or Institutional Access, request a custom quote for your organization at www.ieee.org/smartgridresearch.

This IEEE Vision for Smart Grid Communications: 2030 and Beyond Roadmap is a high-levelsupplement of the full vision document IEEE Vision for Smart Grid Communications: 2030 andBeyond. Communication is a major enabling technology for the Smart Grid. We believe that the powergrid will tend to utilize advances in communications since the data exchange requirements willscale up for the Smart Grid. Smart Grid communication will help to improve demand forecasting,enable self-healing from (...) power disturbance events, facilitate active participation by consumers in demand-response mechanisms, and provide resilience against physical and cyber attacks. Smart Grid communication will also help to improve quality of power, allow easy integration of renewable energy sources into the grid, foster innovation to enable new products, services, and markets, assist in optimization of assets, and improve operating efficiency. (shrink)

This document provides a vision of the communications-related aspects of the Smart Grid in the year 2030, and lays out the technology roadmap that will lead us to the vision. This document starts with some basic knowledge of the power grid and follows up with fundamental building blocks for the communication infrastructure that will accompany the Smart Grid. Subsequently, network architectures, including overlays, are discussed at length. Also discussed, are important issues such as standards, regulations, (...) security, and disruptive technologies. The last part of this document discusses emerging technologies such as the solid state transformer, wireless beamed power, and quantum key distribution. Throughout the document, a careful distinction is made between communications capabilities and the specific technologies that are required to support those capabilities. (shrink)

A large number of modern communication technologies and sensing technologies are incorporated into the smart grid, which makes its structure unique. The centralized optimized dispatch method of traditional power grids is difficult to achieve effective dispatch of smart grids. Based on the analysis of power generation plan and maintenance plan optimization model, this paper establishes a smart grid power generation and maintenance collaborative optimization model with distributed renewable energy. The objective function of this collaborative optimization (...) problem is the operating cost of conventional units, the cost of wind power generation, and the cost of overhauling units; the constraints considered mainly include system constraints and overhaul constraints. The solution method of combinatorial optimization is analyzed, and the genetic optimization algorithm adopted in this paper is selected and discussed. According to the characteristics of the system, various loads are modeled, and power supply constraints are considered. By establishing an effective objective function, the adjustable load scheduling problem is transformed into a solvable optimal control problem. Taking into account the uncertain factors in the system, the advantage of the real-time control system is that it can realize the dynamic update scheduling of the load, so it is more in line with the requirements of the actual system. The real-time algorithm proposed in the paper is based on a distributed control strategy, which can not only realize dynamic compensation for random fluctuations in renewable energy power generation but also satisfy the load curve optimization under the premise of making full use of power supply resources. In addition, simulation experiments compare the load dispatching capabilities of the proposed algorithm with the existing algorithms, thereby verifying the performance of the proposed method. (shrink)

This article is a reflection of the project ‘Welcome Aboard’, which I collaborated on in 2011, with two scientists Nicola Armaroli (Ist. ISOF/CNR, Bologna and Molecular Photoscience Group, Bologna) and Vincenzo Balzani (Department of Chemistry G. Ciamician, University of Bologna). The video establishes a dialogue based on Buckminster Fuller’s ‘World Game’ where they offer possible scenarios for our planet running under renewable energy sources. Ultimately, a democratic system of energy sharing, between consumers and suppliers, was proposed to be put at (...) the forefront. The article begins with David Bohm’s focus on how a collective thought process can have drastic affects on our society. He proposes that we recognize the ‘whole’ in which we live to avoid becoming a society of fragmented incoherency. Similarly, as an engineer Buckminster Fuller has devoted himself to finding an effective action to change the world through a global approach, which he calls a whole-system perspective. The technology of the Smart Grid, proposed in the dialogue between the two scientists of ‘Welcome Aboard’ in which every individual produces, shares and consumes energy (electricity), seems to be a new tool that could be combined with other technologies to provide a connectivity between human beings. (shrink)

Smart grids are rolling out internationally, with the United States nearing completion of a significant USD4-plus-billion federal program funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The emergence of smart grids is widespread across developed countries. Multiple approaches to analyzing the benefits of smart grids have emerged. The goals of this white paper are to review these approaches and analyze examples of each to highlight their differences, advantages, and disadvantages. This work was conducted under the auspices of (...) a joint U.S.-China research effort, the Climate Change Working Group Implementation Plan, Smart Grid. We present comparative benefits assessments of smart grid demonstrations in the U.S. and China along with a BA of a pilot project in Europe. In the U.S., we assess projects at two sites: the University of California, Irvine campus, which consists of two distinct demonstrations: Southern California Edison’s Irvine Smart Grid Demonstration Project and the UCI campus itself; and the Navy Yard area in Philadelphia, which has been repurposed as a mixed commercial-industrial, and possibly residential, development. In China, we cover several smart-grid aspects of the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city and the Shenzhen Bay Technology and Ecology City. In Europe, we look at a BA of a pilot smart grid project in the Malagrotta area west of Rome, Italy, contributed by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. The Irvine sub-project BAs use the U.S. Department of Energy Smart Grid Computational Tool, which is built on methods developed by the Electric Power Research Institute. The TEC sub-project BAs apply Smart Grid Multi-Criteria Analysis developed by the State Grid Corporation of China based on the analytic hierarchy process with fuzzy logic. The B-TEC and TNY sub-project BAs are evaluated using new approaches developed by those project teams. JRC has adopted an approach similar to EPRI’s but tailored to the Malagrotta distribution grid. (shrink)

The 2003 blackout in the northern and eastern U.S. and Canada which caused a $6 billion loss in economic revenue is one of many indicators that the current electrical grid is outdated. Not only must the grid become more reliable, it must also become more efficient, reduce its impact on the environment, incorporate alternative energy sources, allow for more consumer choices, and ensure cyber security. In effect, it must become smart. Significant investments in the billions of dollars (...) are being made to lay the infrastructure of the future Smart Grid. However, the authors argue that we must take great care not to sacrifice consumer privacy amidst an atmosphere of unbridled enthusiasm for electricity reform. Information proliferation, lax controls and insufficient oversight of this information could lead to unprecedented invasions of consumer privacy. Smart meters and smart appliances will constitute a data explosion of intimate details of daily life, and it is not yet clear who will have access to this information beyond a person’s utility provider. The authors of this paper urge the adoption of Dr. Ann Cavoukian’s conceptual model ‘SmartPrivacy’ to prevent potential invasions of privacy while ensuring full functionality of the Smart Grid. SmartPrivacy represents a broad arsenal of protections, encapsulating everything necessary to ensure that all of the personal information held by an organization is appropriately managed. These include: Privacy by Design; law, regulation and independent oversight; accountability and transparency; market forces, education and awareness; audit and control; data security; and fair information practices. Each of these elements is important, but the concept of Privacy by Design represents its sine qua non. When applying SmartPrivacy to the Smart Grid, not only will the grid be able to, for example, become increasingly resistant to attack and natural disasters—it will be able to do so while also becoming increasingly resistant to data leakage and breaches of personal information. The authors conclude that SmartPrivacy must be built into the Smart Grid during its current nascent stage, allowing for both consumer control of electricity consumption and consumer control of their personal information, which must go hand in hand. Doing so will ensure that consumer confidence and trust is gained, and that their participation in the Smart Grid contributes to the vision of creating a more efficient and environmentally friendly electrical grid, as well as one that is protective of privacy. This will result in a positive-sum outcome, where both environmental efficiency and privacy can coexist. (shrink)

Coordination of a power system with the phasor measurement devices in real time on the load and generation sides is carried out within the context of smart grid studies. Power systems equipped with information systems in a smart grid pace with external security threats. Developing a smart grid which can resist against cyber threats is considered indispensable for the uninterrupted operation. In this study, a two-way secure communication methodology underpinned by a chaos-based encryption algorithm (...) for PMU devices is proposed. The proposed system uses the IEEE-14 busbar system on which the optimum PMU placement has been installed. The proposed hyperchaotic system-based encryption method is applied as a new security methodology among PMU devices. The success of results is evaluated by the completeness of data exchange, durations, the complexity of encryption-decryption processes, and strength of cryptography using a microcomputer-based implementation. The results show that the proposed microcomputer-based encryption algorithms can be directly embedded as encryption hardware units into PMU and PDC devices which have very fast signal processing capabilities taking into considerations the acceptable delay time for power system protection and measuring applications and quality metering applications which is 2 ms and 10 ms, respectively. While proposed algorithms can be used in TCP or UDP over IP-based IEEE C37.118, IEC 61850, and IEC 61850-90-5 communication frameworks, they can also be embedded into electronic cards, smartcards, or smart tokens which are utilized for authentication among smart grid components. (shrink)

The area of smart power grids needs to constantly improve its efficiency and resilience, to provide high quality electrical power in a resilient grid, while managing faults and avoiding failures. Achieving this requires high component reliability, adequate maintenance, and a studied failure occurrence. Correct system operation involves those activities and novel methodologies to detect, classify, and isolate faults and failures and model and simulate processes with predictive algorithms and analytics. In this paper, we showcase the application of a (...) complex-adaptive, self-organizing modeling method, and Probabilistic Boolean Networks, as a way towards the understanding of the dynamics of smart grid devices, and to model and characterize their behavior. This work demonstrates that PBNs are equivalent to the standard Reinforcement Learning Cycle, in which the agent/model has an interaction with its environment and receives feedback from it in the form of a reward signal. Different reward structures were created to characterize preferred behavior. This information can be used to guide the PBN to avoid fault conditions and failures. (shrink)

The stability of the power grid is concernment due to the high demand and supply to smart cities, homes, factories, and so on. Different machine learning and deep learning models can be used to tackle the problem of stability prediction for the energy grid. This study elaborates on the necessity of IoT technology to make energy grid networks smart. Different prediction models, namely, logistic regression, naïve Bayes, decision tree, support vector machine, random forest, XGBoost, k-nearest (...) neighbor, and optimized artificial neural network, have been applied on openly available smart energy grid datasets to predict their stability. The present article uses metrics such as accuracy, precision, recall, f1-score, and ROC curve to compare different predictive models. Data augmentation and feature scaling have been applied to the dataset to get better results. The augmented dataset provides better results as compared with the normal dataset. This study concludes that the deep learning predictive model ANN optimized with Adam optimizer provides better results than other predictive models. The ANN model provides 97.27% accuracy, 96.79% precision, 95.67% recall, and 96.22% F1 score. (shrink)

Proactively including the ethical and societal issues of new technologies could have a positive effect on their acceptance. These issues could be captured in terms of values. In the literature, the values stakeholders deem important for the development of technology have often been identified. However, the relative ranking of these values in relation to each other have not been studied often. The best worst method is proposed as a possible method to determine the weights of values, hence it is used (...) in an evaluative fashion. The applicability of the method is tested by applying it to the case of smart meters, one of the main components of the smart grid. The importance of values is examined for three dimensions of acceptance namely sociopolitical, market, and household acceptance. (shrink)

India’s energy demand is predicted to rise by 135% within a span of 20 years. Coping up with surging energy demands requires several reforms in both renewable and non-renewable sectors. Factors such as rising population, reduction in the cost of renewable energy technology and their effect on the nation’s GDP, can make policy making a herculean task and the justification for such policies, quite opaque to the public. Artificial Intelligence technology can help decision makers to quickly draw conclusions from voluminous (...) datasets under different heads. However, AI results need to be post-processed so that they are easily understood by the layperson. This paper focuses on using Sankey diagrams as a post-processing tool for AI systems. Policy formulation often requires an overall assessment of energy sources, production pathways, end used destinations and wastage encountered—these can be easily visualized with a Sankey diagram. For this work, a Sankey protocol was written out in a form where a prompt asks the user to supply information through a spreadsheet interfaced with a customized mobile app—a first anywhere in the subcontinent. India’s mobile sector is vibrant, and the paper presents a enabling the user to have a handle on the dynamics of energy distribution locally. The app gives an instant feel of the apportioned energy across grids, the projected changes for the next decade, the efficiency and feasibility of each sector and lastly a telling visual representation showing the main strengths and weaknesses in the energy sector. (shrink)

The continuous development of information communication technology facilitates the conventional grid in transforming into an automated modern system. Internet-of-Things solutions are used along with the evolving services of end-users to the electricity service provider for smart grid applications. In terms of various devices and machine integration, adequate authentication is the key to an accurate source and destination in advanced metering infrastructure (AMI). Various protocols are deployed to lead the identification between two parties, which require high computation time (...) and communicational bit operations for system development. Therefore, Kerberos-based authentication protocols were designed in this study with the assistance of elliptic curve cryptography to manage the mutual authentication between two parties and reduce the time and bit operations. The protocols were evaluated in a widely adopted tool, AVISPA, which builds an understanding of the proposed protocol and ensures mutual authentication without unauthorized knowledge. In addition, upon comparing security and performance assessments to the current schemes, it was found that the protocol in this study required less time and bits to transmit information. Consequently, it effectively provides multiple security features making it suitable for resource constraint smart meters in AMI. (shrink)

The safety of the transmission lines maintains the stable and efficient operation of the smart grid. Therefore, it is very important and highly desirable to diagnose the health status of transmission lines by developing an efficient prediction model in the grid sensor network. However, the traditional methods have limitations caused by the characteristics of high dimensions, multimodality, nonlinearity, and heterogeneity of the data collected by sensors. In this paper, a novel model called LPR-MLP is proposed to predict (...) the health status of the power grid sensor network. The LPR-MLP model consists of two parts: local binary pattern, principal component analysis, and ReliefF are used to process image data and meteorological and mechanical data and the multilayer perceptron method is then applied to build the prediction model. The results obtained from extensive experiments on the real-world data collected from the online system of China Southern Power Grid demonstrate that this new LPR-MLP model can achieve higher prediction accuracy and precision of 86.31% and 85.3%, compared with four traditional methods. (shrink)

The power grid is an important connection between power sources and users, responsible for supplying and distributing electric energy to users. Modern power grids are widely distributed and large in scale, and their security faces new problems and challenges. Information entropy theory is an objective weighting method that compares the information order of each evaluation index to judge the weight value. With the wide application of entropy theory in various disciplines, the subject of introducing entropy into the power system (...) has been gradually concerned. This article aims to study the smart terminal security technology of the power grid perception layer based on information entropy data mining. This article analyzes its related methods and designs a smart terminal for the power grid. On this basis, a data analysis platform is built and a safety plan is designed. The result is that the average absolute error, root mean square error, average absolute percentage error, and mean square error of the platform's power load forecast are 1.58, 1.96, 8.2%, and 3.93, respectively. These error values are within the ideal range, and the data processing ability is strong. The packet loss rate of the adversary's eavesdropping was tested, and the average packet loss rates at locations a, b, c, and d were 1.05, 1.2, 1.81, and 2.2%, respectively. Data packets will be definitely lost, so the platform is highly secure. (shrink)

Non-invasive prenatal testing is at the forefront of prenatal screening. Current uses for NIPT include fetal sex determination and screening for chromosomal disorders such as trisomy 21. However, NIPT may be expanded to many different future applications. There are a potential host of ethical concerns around the expanding use of NIPT, as examined by the recent Nuffield Council report on the topic. It is important to examine what NIPT might be used for before these possibilities become consumer reality. There is (...) limited research exploring views of women on possible future uses of NIPT, particularly those of women who have undergone NIPT. In this study, we examined the views of women who undertook NIPT previously on the acceptability of and interest levels in using NIPT for a number of current and possible future applications. These included several medical conditions encompassing psychiatric, neurodevelopmental and adult-onset conditions as well as non-medical traits such as intelligence. One thousand women were invited to participate and 235 eligible surveys were received. Women generally reported an interest in using NIPT for medical conditions that severely impacted quality of life and with an onset earlier in life and stressed the importance of the accuracy of the test. Concerns were raised about the use of NIPT for non-medical traits. Respondents indicated that termination of pregnancy was not their only reason for testing, particularly in the case of sex. These results can further inform the ethical debate around the increasing integration of NIPT into healthcare systems. (shrink)

The scope of noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) could expand in the future to include detailed analysis of the fetal genome. This will allow for the testing for virtually any trait with a genetic contribution, including “non-medical” traits. Here we discuss the potential use of NIPT for these traits. We outline a scenario which highlights possible inconsistencies with ethical decision-making. We then discuss the case against permitting these uses. The objections include practical problems; increasing inequities; increasing the burden of choice; negative (...) impacts on the child, family, and society; and issues with implementation. We then outline the case for permitting the use of NIPT for these traits. These include arguments for reproductive liberty and autonomy; questioning the labeling of traits as “non-medical”; and the principle of procreative beneficence. This summary of the case for and against can serve as a basis for the development of a consistent and coherent ethical framework. (shrink)

The scope of noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) could expand in the future to include detailed analysis of the fetal genome. This will allow for the testing for virtually any trait with a genetic contribution, including “non-medical” traits. Here we discuss the potential use of NIPT for these traits. We outline a scenario which highlights possible inconsistencies with ethical decision-making. We then discuss the case against permitting these uses. The objections include practical problems; increasing inequities; increasing the burden of choice; negative (...) impacts on the child, family, and society; and issues with implementation. We then outline the case for permitting the use of NIPT for these traits. These include arguments for reproductive liberty and autonomy; questioning the labeling of traits as “non-medical”; and the principle of procreative beneficence. This summary of the case for and against can serve as a basis for the development of a consistent and coherent ethical framework. (shrink)

The emergence of large-scale social media systems, such as Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter, has given rise to a new multi-disciplinary effort based around the concept of social machines. For the most part, this research effort has limited its attention to the study of Web-based systems. It has also, perhaps unsurprisingly, tended to highlight the social scientific relevance of such systems. The present paper seeks to expand the scope of the social machine research effort to encompass the Internet of Things. One (...) advantage of this expansion is that it helps to reveal some of the links between the science of social machines and the sciences of the mind. A second advantage is that it furthers our conceptual understanding of social machines and supports the quest to derive a philosophically-robust definition of the term “social machine.” The results of the present analysis suggest that social machines are best conceived as systems in which a combination of social and technological elements play a role in the mechanistic realization of system-level phenomena. The analysis also highlights the relevance of cognitive science and the philosophy of mind to our general understanding of systems that transcend the cyber, physical, and social domains. (shrink)

This article explores the notion of the Web-extended mind, which is the idea that the technological and informational elements of the Web can sometimes serve as part of the mechanistic substrate that realizes human mental states and processes. It is argued that while current forms of the Web may not be particularly suited to the realization of Web-extended minds, new forms of user interaction technology as well as new approaches to information representation do provide promising new opportunities for Web-based forms (...) of cognitive extension. In addition, it is suggested that extended cognitive systems often rely on the emergence of social practices and conventions that shape how a technology is used. Web-extended minds may thus depend on forms of socio-technical co-evolution in which social forces and factors play just as important a role as do the processes of technology design and development. (shrink)

A theory of punishment should give some account of mercy and yet it is true to say that very little has been said about it at all. It is commonly regarded as a praiseworthy element in moral behaviour—something to be practised occasionally both for the good of the one who punishes and the one who is punished. The suffering that punishment involves is unpleasant for all concerned, and if it is possible to avoid it or lessen it without moral injustice, (...) then it is desirable to do so. We condemn as hard and unbending the judge who never shows mercy and the suggestion is that the poor unfortunates whose lot it is to be judged by him are poor unfortunates indeed. This is reflected in the fact that the opposite of merciful—merciless—means cruel. Presumably there are occasions when it is appropriate to show mercy to an offender, and other occasions when it is not. What are the conditions for the appropriate exercising of mercy, how do we decide how much mercy is appropriate, and when is a judge morally obliged to be merciful, if ever? (shrink)

Ambitiously undertaking to develop a strategy for making the study of religion "scientific," Ninian Smart tackles a set of interrelated issues that bear importantly on the status of religion as an academic discipline. He draws a clear distinction between studying religion and "doing theology," and considers how phenomenological method may be used in investigating objects of religious attitudes without presupposing the existence of God or gods. He goes on to criticize projectionist theories of religion and theories of rationality in (...) both religion and anthropology. On this basis he builds a theory of religious dynamics which gives religious ideas and entities an autonomous place in the sociology of knowledge. His overall purpose is thus "to indicate ways forward in the study of religion which free it from being crypto-apologetics or elevating poetry." Originally published in 1973. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Can miracles happen? Is the human will free? Against the background of the world's religions, what does religious experience show? If a good God exists, why does he allow evil? As the author writes, "We have to think our way through a number of the central issues raised by the claims of religion to give a true account of the world in which we live." His special contribution is to insist that we do not ignore the achievements of those who (...) have wrestled with the problems in previous generations. In this book, therefore, each problem is presented in connection with the thought of a major figure in the history of philosophy and theology: Hume, Kant, Aquinas, Otto and Tennant. He is also convinced that Western Christians have much to learn from the other religions of the world. (shrink)

Background Non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT), which can screen for aneuploidies such as trisomy 21, is being implemented in several public healthcare systems across Europe. Comprehensive communication and information have been highlighted in the literature as important elements in supporting women’s reproductive decision-making and addressing relevant ethical concerns such as routinisation. Countries such as England and France are adopting broadly similar implementation models, offering NIPT for pregnancies with high aneuploidy probability. However, we do not have a deeper understanding of how professionals’ (...) counselling values and practices may differ between these contexts. Methods In this paper, we explore how professionals in England and France support patient decision-making in the provision of NIPT and critically compare professional practices and values. We draw on data from semi-structured interviews with healthcare professionals. Results Both English and French professionals emphasised values relating to patient choice and consent. However, understandings and application of these values into the practice of NIPT provision differed. English interviewees placed a stronger emphasis on interpreting and describing the process of counselling patients and clinical care through a “principle” lens. Their focus was on non-directiveness, standardisation, and the healthcare professional as “decision-facilitator” for patients. French interviewees described their approach through a “procedural” lens. Their focus was on formal consent, information, and the healthcare professional as “information-giver”. Both English and French professionals indicated that insufficient resources were a key barrier in effectively translating their values into practice. Conclusion Our findings illustrate that supporting patient choice in the provision of NIPT may be held as an important value in common on a surface level, but can be understood and translated into practice in different ways. Our findings can guide further research and beneficially inform practice and policy around NIPT provision. (shrink)

Pharmacogenetics is an emerging biotechnology concerned with understanding the genetic basis of drug response, and promises to transform the development, marketing and prescription of medicines. This paper is concerned with analysing the move towards segmented drug markets, which is implicit in the commercial development of pharmacogenetics. It is claimed that in future who gets a particular drug will be determined by their genetic make up. Drawing on ideas from the sociology of expectations we examine how pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are (...) constructing, responding to and realising particular ‘visions’ or expectations of pharmacogenetics and market stratification. We argue that the process of market segmentation remains uncertain, but that the outcome will be fashioned according to the convergence and divergence of the interests of key commercial actors. Qualitative data based both on interviews with industry executives and company documentation will be used to explore how different groups of companies are developing pharmacogenetics in distinct ways, and what consequences these different pathways might have for both clinical practice and health policy. In particular, the analysis will show a convergence of interests between biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies for creating segmented markets for new drugs, but a divergence of interest in segmenting established markets. Whilst biotechnology firms have a strong incentive to innovate, the pharmaceutical industry has no commercial interest in segmenting markets for existing products. This has important implications, as many of the claimed public health benefits of pharmacogenetics will derive from changing the prescribing of existing medicines. One significant implication of this is that biotechnology companies who wish to apply pharmacogenetics to existing medicines will have to explore an alternative convergence of interests with healthcare payers and providers . Healthcare providers may have a strong incentive to use pharmacogenetics to make the prescribing of existing medicine more cost-effective. However, we conclude by suggesting that a question mark hangs over their ability to provide the necessary economic and structural resources to bring such a vision to fruition. (shrink)