After the initial surge in cases of coronavirus, the outbreak has been managed differently in different countries. In the USA, it has been managed in many different ways between states, cities and even counties. This disparity is slowly becoming more and more pronounced with the advent of antibody testing. Although many argue over the potential merits of antibody testing as an immunity passport to allow the economy to restart, there are other implications that stand at the heart of the bioethical (...) debate that are often overlooked. Particularly with COVID-19, there are many uncertainties and the discourse alone of antibodies presumes misinformation that may outweigh the epidemiological benefits of antibody testing. Although this paper does not seek to eliminate antibody testing, it does highlight the need for appropriate counselling both on a personal level with each patient but on a more global level. This moral standard of appropriate education is key to allowing the continued autonomy needed during this pandemic. (shrink)

This work gives an innovative approach to the subject, which puts forward a distinctly Buddhist environmental ethics that is in harmony with traditional ...

_Environmental Ethics in Buddhism_ presents a logical and thorough examination of the metaphysical and ethical dimensions of early Buddhist literature. The author determines the meaning of nature in the early Buddhist context from general Buddhist teachings on dhamma, paticcasamuppada, samsara and the cosmogony of the Agganna Sutta. Consequently, the author shows that early Buddhism can be understood as an environmental virtue ethics. To illustrate this dimension, the Jatakas are used as a source. These are a collection of over five hundred (...) folk tales, which also belong to early Buddhist literature. This work gives an innovative approach to the subject, which puts forward a distinctly Buddhist environmental ethics that is in harmony with traditional teachings as well as adaptable and flexible in addressing environmental problems. (shrink)

Advance care planning allows patients to articulate preferences for their medical treatment, lifestyle, and surrogate decision-makers in order to anticipate and mitigate their potential loss of decision-making capacity. Written advance directives are often emphasized in this regard. While these directives contain important information, there are several barriers to consider: veracity and accuracy of surrogate decision-makers in making choices consistent with the substituted judgement standard, state-to-state variability in regulations, literacy issues, lack of access to legal resources, lack of understanding of medical (...) options, and cultural disparities. Given these issues, it is vital to increase the use of patient and healthcare provider conversations as an advance care planning tool and to increase integration of such discourse into advance care planning policy as adjuncts and complements to written advance directives. This paper reviews current legislation about written advance directives and dissects how documentation of spoken interactions might be integrated and considered. We discuss specific institutional policy changes required to facilitate implementation. Finally, we explore the ethical issues surrounding the increased usage and recognition of clinician–patient conversations in advance care planning. (shrink)

Past decades have witnessed the growing success of branding as a corporate activity as well as a rise in anti-brand activism. While appearing to be contradictory, both trends have emerged from common sources – the transition from industrial to post-industrial society, and the advent of globalization – the examination of which might lead to a socially grounded understanding of why brand success in the future is likely to demand more than superior product performance, placing increasing demand on corporations with regard (...) to a broader envelop of socially responsible behavior. Directions for strategic and managerial options are suggested. (shrink)

We describe a prey–predator system incorporating constant prey refuge through provision of alternative food to predators. The proposed model deals with a problem of non-selective harvesting of a prey–predator system in which both the prey and the predator species obey logistic law of growth. The long-run sustainability of an exploited system is discussed through provision of alternative food to predators. We have analyzed the variability of the system in presence of constant prey refuge and examined the stabilizing effect on predator–prey (...) system. The steady states of the system are derived and dynamical behavior of the system is extensively analyzed around steady states. The optimal harvesting policy is formulated and solved with the help of Pontryagin’s maximal principle. Our objective is to maximize the monetary social benefit through protecting the predator species from extinction, keeping the ecological balance. Results finally illustrated with the help of numerical examples. (shrink)

In this commentary, we question (1) how embodied Thelen et al.'s model is relative to their aims, and (2) how embodied the behavior of children is in particular response systems, relative to how much dynamic systems theory emphasizes this idea. We close with corrections to mischaracterizations of an alternative, neural network perspective on infant behavior.

Corporate responsibility is considered the “epitome of corporate ethics.” In “the balanced concept of the firm,” a corporation is seen as a moral agent that has a balanced approach to managing three interrelated and equally important responsibilities viz. economic, social, and environmental. The case study aims to advance our understating of the “triple bottom line approach to CSR” by showing how a news media organization committed itself to dispensing its corporate responsibilities despite facing lawless situations. Through a detailed study of (...) organizational records and interviews with the top management of the organization, we found that Prabhat Khabar could reap rich benefits for its stakeholders by engaging in role-related work and following business practices that were innovative, contextually appropriate, and ethically correct. As Prabhat Khabar’s growth happened in a market that was adverse to business activities, we believe that its story would act as a role model function of corporate conduct in emerging economies. Moreover, it would help organizations understand how to commit themselves to corporate responsibilities in unfavourable circumstances. (shrink)

This study examined video game–playing aggression among graduate and undergraduate students at Rochester Institute of Technology in upstate New York. The following three research questions were posed: In the context of video game playing, what differences are there in levels of aggression in relation to sex? What differences are there in levels of aggression and type of video games played? Are aggression and length of video game playing related? A nonprobability sample of students (N = 175) was selected and electronically (...) surveyed. The Buss–Perry Aggression Questionnaire, a widely used self-reported measure, was used to assess aggression. No significant difference was found between men and women with regard to levels of aggression, and no statistically significant relationship was found between aggression and length of video game playing (r = −.05, p =.52). However, significant differences were found in levels of aggression between playing and nonplaying respondents of action role-playing (t = −1.48, df = 175, p =.01) and role-playing video games (t = −1.24, df = 175, p =.02). Players of role-playing games had lower levels of aggression than nonplayers. Since role-playing requires one to take the part of another person, empathy might play a role in reduced levels of aggression. Although exposure to violent video games has been related to decreased empathy, role-playing games show just the opposite. It is suggested that controversies regarding violent video games might best be explained by moral panic theory and that competitive games may attract more aggressive players. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:The purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate the instrumental perspective on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in practice and theory by relying on sociological analyses of a well known organization: the Italian Mafia. Legal businesses might share features of the Mafia, such as the propensity to exploit a governance vacuum in society, a strong organizational identity that demarcates the inside from the outside, and an extreme profit motive. Instrumental CSR practices have the power to accelerate a firm's transition to (...) Mafia status through its own pathologies. The boundaries of such instrumentalism are explored and lessons for future CSR research derived, with specific emphasis on a firm's social and normative embeddedness, taking into account the inherent challenge of regulating corporate behaviour in the global economy. (shrink)

Making research data readily accessible during a public health emergency can have profound effects on our response capabilities. The moral milieu of this data sharing has not yet been adequately explored. This article explores the foundation and nature of a duty, if any, that researchers have to share data, specifically in the context of public health emergencies. There are three notable reasons that stand in opposition to a duty to share one’s data, relating to: (i) data property and ownership, (ii) (...) just distribution of benefits and burdens and (iii) the contemporary ethos of science. We argue each reason can be successfully met with corresponding rationale in favour of data sharing. Further support for data sharing has been echoed in policies of health agencies, funding bodies and academic institutions; in documents on the ethical conduct of biomedical research; and in discussions on the nature of public health. From this, we ascertain that sharing data is the morally sound default position. This article then highlights the key roles reciprocity and solidarity play in supporting the practice of data sharing. We conclude with recommendations to regard public health research data as a common-pool resource in order to build a framework for stable data sharing management. (shrink)

> Wealthy nations must do much more, much faster. The United Nations General Assembly in September 2021 will bring countries together at a critical time for marshalling collective action to tackle the global environmental crisis. They will meet again at the biodiversity summit in Kunming, China, and the climate conference 26) in Glasgow, UK. Ahead of these pivotal meetings, we—the editors of health journals worldwide—call for urgent action to keep average global temperature increases below 1.5°C, halt the destruction of nature (...) and protect health. Health is already being harmed by global temperature increases and the destruction of the natural world, a state of affairs health professionals have been bringing attention to for decades.1 The science is unequivocal; a global increase of 1.5°C above the preindustrial average and the continued loss of biodiversity risk catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse.2 3 Despite the world’s necessary preoccupation with COVID-19, we cannot wait for the pandemic to pass to rapidly reduce emissions. Reflecting the severity of the moment, this editorial appears in health journals across the world. We are united in recognising that only fundamental and equitable changes to societies will reverse our current trajectory. The risks to health of increases above 1.5°C are now well established.2 Indeed, no temperature rise is ‘safe’. In the past 20 years, heat-related mortality among people aged over 65 has increased by more than 50%.4 Higher temperatures have brought increased dehydration and renal function loss, dermatological malignancies, tropical infections, adverse mental health outcomes, pregnancy complications, allergies, and cardiovascular and pulmonary morbidity and mortality.5 6 Harms disproportionately affect the most vulnerable, including children, older populations, ethnic minorities, poorer communities and those with underlying health problems.2 4 Global heating is also contributing to the decline in …. (shrink)

The nature of the product to be discovered guides the reasoning to discover it. Biologists and medical researchers often search for mechanisms. The "new mechanistic philosophy of science" provides resources about the nature of biological mechanisms that aid the discovery of mechanisms. Here, we apply these resources to the discovery of mechanisms in medicine. A new diagrammatic representation of a disease mechanism chain indicates both what is known and, most significantly, what is not known at a given time, thereby guiding (...) the researcher and collaborators in discovery. Mechanisms of genetic diseases provide the examples. (shrink)

Over 200 health journals call on the United Nations, political leaders, and health professionals to recognize that climate change and biodiversity loss are one indivisible crisis and must be tackle...

The value of and the need for rich data for criminal justice research is increasingly apparent, especially following recent restrictions on primary data collection due to COVID-19. Whilst the benef...

Over 200 health journals call on the United Nations, political leaders, and health professionals to recognise that climate change and biodiversity loss are one indivisible crisis and must be tackle...

Over 200 health journals call on the United Nations, political leaders, and health professionals to recognise that climate change and biodiversity loss are one.

In January 2023, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock forward to 90 s before midnight.

This is a re-look at the (Indian) Partition event through the lens of Advaita Vedanta.

An equation proposed by Levy, Perdew and Sahni (Phys. Rev. A 30:2745, 1984) is an orbital-free formulation of density functional theory. However, this equation describes a bosonic system. Here, we analyze on a very fundamental level, how this equation could be extended to yield a formulation for a general fermionic distribution of charge and spin. This analysis starts at the level of single electrons and with the question, how spin actually comes into a charge distribution in a non-relativistic model. (...) To this end we present a space-time model of extended electrons, which is formulated in terms of geometric algebra. Wave properties of the electron are referred to mass density oscillations. We provide a comprehensive and non-statistical interpretation of wavefunctions, referring them to mass density components and internal field components. It is shown that these wavefunctions comply with the Schrödinger equation, for the free electron as well as for the electron in electrostatic and vector potentials. Spin-properties of the electron are referred to intrinsic field components and it is established that a measurement of spin in an external field yields exactly two possible results. However, it is also established that the spin of free electrons is isotropic, and that spin-dynamics of single electrons can be described by a modified Landau-Lifshitz equation. The model agrees with the results of standard theory concerning the hydrogen atom. Finally, we analyze many-electron systems and derive a set of coupled equations suitable to characterize the system without any reference to single electron states. The model is expected to have the greatest impact in condensed matter theory, where it allows to describe an N-electron system by a many-electron wavefunction Ψ of four, instead of 3N variables. The many-body aspect of a system is in this case encoded in a bivector potential. (shrink)