Organisational leaders mismanaging business affairs are guided by performance pressures and/or greed while pressurising employees to follow. Unethical activities have led to stakeholder losses, with no accountability by individuals perpetuating the fraud. Corporate governance frameworks and subsequent reforms have been used merely as tick box measures, proving them inefficient in numerous corporate collapses. This study intends to explore and analyse the roles of personal and collective virtues in corporate citizenship. Developing from the virtues theory and using a mixed method of (...) three focus group discussions and a self-administered questionnaire of 119 participants from various organisations, the authors establish that personal virtues are important to portray ethical individualism. However, in a corporate setting, collective virtues are more important to enhance corporate citizenship, through ethical culture and collective accountability. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment &Responsibility, EarlyView.

Tamil Siddhas, a loosely associated group of mystics belonging to the pan Indian Tantric tradition, recommend using the body and the mind as tools to surpass limited existence. They prescribe a method of yoga which utilizes the mind’s power to bring together dualities within a practitioner’s body to achieve kāya siddhi or a perfected, deathless body. The esoteric language and symbolism that the Siddhas use to convey their teachings have led to the misunderstanding and misinterpretation of their philosophy and methodology. (...) This study aims to explain Tamil Siddha yoga and dispel some of the misconceptions about Tamil Siddhas using Siddha Agatthiyar’s composition, Antaraṅga dīkṣā viti, as the primary text. (shrink)

Papers presented at the Conference on the Interactions of Buddhism with Hinduism organised by the Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, in Nov. 1990.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a description of an innovative web-based ethics module that was designed to integrate ethics education across four accounting courses over two years (second and third year courses) in a large Australian tertiary institution. Approach: The approach taken in designing the ethics web-based module was to base the foundations of the module on Rest’s (1976) ethical behavior model with the adoption of a longitudinal approach to thecoverage of financial reporting ethical issues. Practical (...) Implications: The key objectives of the module are to improve students’ awareness and sensitivity to accounting ethics, and to foster student learning in an interesting and stimulating manner, leading to in-depth understanding of accounting ethics. Originality/value of paper: This paper provides a description of an original web-based approach to delivering ethics education to accounting students across four university courses. Its value lies in not only the innovative and interactive ethics education approach but also in providing feedback from students and the profession. (shrink)

Distributed programming paradigms such as MapReduce and Spark have alleviated sequential bottleneck while mining of massive transaction databases. Of significant importance is mining High Utility Itemset that incorporates the revenue of the items purchased in a transaction. Although a few algorithms to mine HUIs in the distributed environment exist, workload skew and data transfer overhead due to shuffling operations remain major issues. In the current study, Parallel Utility Computation algorithm has been proposed with novel grouping and load balancing strategies for (...) an efficient mining of HUIs in a distributed environment. To group the items, Transaction Weighted Utility values as a degree of transaction similarity is employed. Subsequently, these groups are assigned to the nodes across the cluster by taking into account the mining load due to the items in the group. Experimental evaluation on real and synthetic datasets demonstrate that PUC with TWU grouping in conjunction with load balancing converges mining faster. Due to reduced data transfer, and load balancing-based assignment strategy, PUC outperforms different grouping strategies and random assignment of groups across the cluster. Also, PUC is shown to be faster than PHUI-Growth algorithm with a promising speedup. (shrink)

Traditional document clustering algorithms consider text-based features such as unique word count, concept count, etc. to cluster documents. Meanwhile, event mining is the extraction of specific events, their related sub-events, and the associated semantic relations from documents. This work discusses an approach to event mining through clustering. The Universal Networking Language -based subgraph, a semantic representation of the document, is used as the input for clustering. Our research focuses on exploring the use of three different feature sets for event clustering (...) and comparing the approaches used for specific event mining. In our previous work, the clustering algorithm used UNL-based event semantics to represent event context for clustering. However, this approach resulted in different events with similar semantics being clustered together. Hence, instead of considering only UNL event semantics, we considered assigning additional weights to similarity between event contexts with event-related attributes such as time, place, and persons. Although we get specific events in a single cluster, sub-events related to the specific events are not necessarily in a single cluster. Therefore, to improve our cluster efficiency, connective terms between two sentences and their representation as UNL subgraphs were also considered for similarity determination. By combining UNL semantics, event-specific arguments similarity, and connective term concepts between sentences, we were able to obtain clusters for specific events and their sub-events. We have used 112 000 Tamil documents from the Forum for Information Retrieval Evaluation data corpus and achieved good results. We have also compared our approach with the previous state-of-the-art approach for Router-RCV1 corpus and achieved 30% improvements in precision. (shrink)

Children learn and use various strategies to solve math problems. One way children's math learning can be supported is through their use of and exposure to hand gestures. Children's self-produced gestures can reveal unique, math-relevant knowledge that is not contained in their speech. Additionally, these gestures can assist with their math learning and problem solving by supporting their cognitive processes, such as executive function. The gestures that children observe during math instructions are also linked to supporting cognition. Specifically, children are (...) better able to learn, retain, and generalize knowledge about math when that information is presented within the gestures that accompany an instructor's speech. To date, no conceptual model provides an outline regarding how these gestures and the math environment are connected, nor how they may interact with children's underlying cognitive capacities such as their executive function. In this review, we propose a new model based on an integration of the information processing approach and theory of embodied cognition. We provide an in-depth review of the related literature and consider how prior research aligns with each link within the proposed model. Finally, we discuss the utility of the proposed model as it pertains to future research endeavors. (shrink)

This study provides evidence on the governance of CSR policies and activities by Indian central government-owned companies [i.e. Central Public Sector Enterprises ] within a unique mandatory regulatory setting. We utilise the multi-level ‘Logic of governance’ conceptual framework and draw upon interview data collected from 25 senior managers in 21 CPSEs to assess the dynamics of CSR implementation within CPSEs. Our findings indicate most managers believe that a mandatory policy has enhanced the accountability and commitment of governing boards and senior (...) management to CSR. However, CSR policy implementation within Indian CPSEs is still nascent, fraught with bureaucratic hurdles, insufficient human and knowledge resources, limited stakeholder analysis and over-emphasis on CSR budget utilisation as an outcome. Several key areas for improvements include the need for better translation of national CSR policy goals to firm-level strategies, more formal assessment of stakeholder needs, clearer communication lines with external service providers, such as NGOs and local government agencies, and the better evaluation of CSR outcomes. The findings of this study have implications for both theory and policy development. (shrink)

The pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV2 novel coronavirus is creating a global crisis. There is a global ambience of uncertainty and anxiety. In addition, nations have imposed strict and restrictive public health measures including lockdowns. In this heightened time of vulnerability, public cooperation to preventive measures depends on trust and confidence in the health system. Trust is the optimistic acceptance of the vulnerability in the belief that the health system has best intentions. On the other hand, confidence is assessed based (...) on previous experiences with the health system. Trust and confidence in the health system motivate people to accept the public health interventions and cooperate with them. Building trust and confidence therefore becomes an ethical imperative. This article analyses the COVID-19 pandemic in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the state’s response to this pandemic. Further, it applies the Trust-Confidence-Cooperation framework of risk management to analyse the influence of public trust and confidence on the Tamil Nadu health system in the context of the preventive strategies adopted by the state. Finally, the article proposes a six-pronged strategy to build trust and confidence in health system functions to improve cooperation to pandemic containment measures. (shrink)

Based on a community psychology perspective, this qualitative study explores the community-inclusion effort of one of the largest pulp and paper companies in the world. Extending the literature on workforce diversity/inclusion, we present the community-inclusive organizational framework, which signifies the dynamics of community inclusiveness of organizations highlighting key managerial accountabilities based on the community psychology perspective. Theoretical and practical implications are presented for promoting community-inclusive organizations, along with avenues for further research.

This special issue explores intersections of feminism, postcolonialism, and technoscience. The papers emerged out of a 2014 research seminar on Feminist Postcolonial Science and Technology Studies at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, University of Michigan. Through innovative engagement with rich empirical cases and theoretical trends in postcolonial theory, feminist theory, and STS, the papers trace local and global circulations of technoscience. They illuminate ways in which science and technology are imbricated in circuits of state power and global (...) inequality and in social movements resisting the state and neocolonial orders. The collection foregrounds the importance of feminist postcolonial STS to our understandings of technoscience, especially how power matters for epistemology and justice. (shrink)

The convergence of India’s rich cultural and religious heritage with its rapidly transforming economy provides a unique opportunity to understand how senior executives navigate the demands of the business environment within the context of their religious convictions. Forty senior executives with varying religious backgrounds and global responsibilities within Indian multinational corporations participated in this study. Drawing from virtue ethics theory and using systematic content analysis, several themes emerged for ethical virtues. The analysis illustrates how these deeply seated ethical virtues helped (...) to form and refine these executives’ ethical mindsets via guiding principles such as an ethical culture, environment, molding, education, commitment and leadership. In turn, these ethical mindsets influenced the executives’ ethical decision-making processes. We find that these executives’ ethical virtues and mindsets are inspired by their religious backgrounds. In summary, a very complex mental tug-of-war appears to take place as these executives rationalize and negotiate unethical circumstances while being cognizant of personal religious beliefs. We contend that in a pluralistic multi-faith society such as India, it is critical for corporations to align the virtues of its senior executives with those of the corporation so that virtues are applied consistently when dealing with various stakeholders. The findings present several theoretical and practical implications, which are discussed. (shrink)

The Norman Rockwell image of the American physician who fixed the broken arm of a child, treated the father for hypertension, and brought an unborn child into this world is now almost nonexistent. Since the time of the Rockwell portrait, a highly technical medical industry has evolved. Now two-thirds of physicians are board certified in subspecialties, and patients visit an average of 3–4 different physicians per year. Today's physicians see themselves less as “benevolent and wise counselors overseeing the patient's welfare (...) and more as objective scientists applying the latest technical methods to bring about the desired end.” The intimate patient-physician relationship that was once the norm in our society is rapidly disappearing. (shrink)

Abstract:This article posits Feminist Science and Technology Studies (FSTS) as a vital tool for bridging postcolonial and decolonial thought. First, FSTS forms a bridge by providing tools for reading epistemic imperialism and scientific racism as shared conditions of possibility for disparate colonizations. Second, by foregrounding the necessary links between epistemic and material violence, FSTS helps undo the theory/praxis binary that sometimes undergirds their analytic opposition. The authors argue that the careful study of science as a set of ideas, practices, and (...) attendant institutions is vital in order to better recognize and intervene in shifting modes of colonial conquest and governance. (shrink)

Interaction of ligands such as epidermal growth factor and interferon‐γ with the extracellular domains of their plasma membrane receptors results in internalization followed by translocation into the nucleus of the ligand and/or receptor. There has been reluctance, however, to ascribe signaling importance to this, the focus instead being on second messenger pathways, including mobilization of kinases and inducible transcription factors (TFs). The latter, however, fails to explain the fact that so many ligands stimulate the same second messenger cascades/TFs, and yet (...) show distinct gene activation profiles. This is particularly apt in the case of the seven STAT TFs that are held to be the mediators of the distinct cellular functions of over 60 ligands. The current review focuses on five representative nuclear localizing ligands for which there is documentation of translocation into the cytosol and nucleus through well‐characterized pathways, in addition to a role in gene activation by ligand/receptor in the nucleus. BioEssays 26:993‐1004, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Coreference resolution is a challenging natural language processing task, and it is difficult to identify the correct mentions of an entity that can be any noun or noun phrase. In this article, a semisupervised, two-stage pattern-based bootstrapping approach is proposed for the coreference resolution task. During Stage 1, the possible mentions are identified using word-based features, and during Stage 2, the correct mentions are identified by filtering the non-coreferents of an entity using statistical measures and graph-based features. Whereas the existing (...) approaches use morphosyntactic and number/gender agreement features, the proposed approach uses semantic graph-based context-level semantics and nested noun phrases in the correct mentions identification. Moreover, mentions without the number/gender information are identified, using the context-based features of the semantic graph. The evaluation performed for the coreference resolution shows significant improvements, when compared with the word association-based bootstrapping systems. (shrink)

ObjectivesThis study aimed to describe the experiences and challenges faced by adolescents with moderate and severe congenital heart defects or Chronic Rheumatic Heart Disease and to determine their needs in order to develop an Adolescent Transition Psychoeducational Program.MethodsThe study involved seven adolescents with moderate to severe CHD/CRHD, six parents, and four health care providers in Institute Jantung Negara. Participants were invited for a semi-structured interview. Qualitative data were analyzed through the Atlas.ti 7 program using triangulation methods.Results/conclusionsWe identified five themes concerning (...) the experience and challenges of adolescents relating to: emotional/psychological issues; the progress of the illness; relationship issues; future preparation; and, school and community. These themes were identified together with eleven subcategories. The staff expressed support for the development of the Adolescent Transition Psychoeducational Program and adolescents with CHD/CRHD and their parents were willing to participate in the program if their schedule allowed. Their suggestions to improve the program were classified into six categories, with two main themes, the self-management of illness in life and the future; and, social support. In conclusion, the findings from the situation analysis act as a basis for a conceptual framework that will contribute to the development of an Adolescent Transition Psychoeducational Program that aims to empower adolescents with CHD/CRHD, enabling them to manage challenges during the transition phase between childhood and adulthood. (shrink)

Carpendale & Lewis (C&L) stress the importance of social interaction for social understanding, but focus on the adult-child relationship. In the present commentary, we discuss the development of social understanding within early peer relationships. We argue that peer interaction stretches the limits of early social understanding, thereby providing both unique challenges and unique opportunities for constructing an understanding of others' minds.

The main purpose of this article is to broaden U.S. scholars' awareness of the similarities and differences of gender literature in another part of the world. In providing this partial review of gender scholarship in India, the authors hope to foster critical reflection on the inequities of global knowledge production and consumption and the role of U.S. academic institutions and scholars in this project. The article is written not by scholars who are based in India but by those who are (...) based in U.S. academies. Given their location, linguistic and cultural competencies, and scholarly expertise, the review, at best, can be described as a glimpse of gender scholarship in India. The four sections of this article feature theoretical and methodological issues, the women's movement, and violence against women in India. (shrink)

This article compares the colonial and contemporary canvas of the hegemonic discourse of White Western writers and their portrayal of Malaysia and her people. The first half of the discussion will focus on the figurative elements of classical colonialist discourse through an exploration of The Soul of Malaya (1931) a text written by Henri Fauconnier, a French planter of Colonial Malaya. Here, cultural hegemony is revealed mostly through the employment of the Manichean allegory, of what we see as “ideological allegory”. (...) The second half of the discussion adopts a more linguistic oriented framework, as it reveals patterns in linguistic selection in the novel , Borneo Fire (1995)by contemporary white writer, William Riviere. This latter is what we term “ideological stylistics”. The main objective of the article is to compare the underlying ideological constructs of the discursive landscape of the two texts and to determine whether white western superiority manifested in the discourse of the contemporary text has evolved from that seen in its colonial predecessor. The paper concludes that time changes little in terms of the location of the other, for despite its being published in 1995, the discourse of Borneo Fire has not moved away from the approach and conventions of the colonial text, The Soul of Malaya. (shrink)

Vedāntadeśika is one of many Sanskrit intellectuals who wrote prolifically in both poetic and philosophical genres. This essay considers how his poetry is related to his philosophical concerns. Scholars have understood the relationship between his poetry and philosophy in a number of ways, some arguing that his poetry permitted a freer exploration of his philosophical ideas, others wishing to discuss his poems independently of his philosophy. My paper will propose a distinct way of understanding this relationship by focusing specifically on (...) a strain of Vedāntadeśika’s poetry inspired by Kālidāsa. Examining selections from his poetry alongside his theological writing on the nature of devotional attention, I will argue that the poetic practice Vedāntadeśika learns by reading Kālidāsa activates the same mental faculty involved in bhakti-yoga, or the devotional contemplation of god. This strain of Vedāntadeśika’s poetry thus amounts to a performance of the devotional practice he describes in his philosophical writings. (shrink)

Aims: To examine the extent of social stigma toward diabetes among Singapore's multi-ethnic general population and determine whether this differs across socio-demographic sub-groups.Methods: Data for this study came from a nationwide cross-sectional study. A diabetes stigma questionnaire comprising Social Distance Scale and Negative Attitudes and Stereotyping Scale was administered to those respondents who had not been diagnosed with diabetes. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted to determine the dimensionality of the instruments and validated using confirmatory factor analysis. Multiple linear regression analysis (...) was conducted to examine associations between socio-demographic factors and measures of diabetes stigma.Results: In all, 2,895 participants were recruited from the general population giving a response rate of 66.2%. Factor analyses found that a one-factor model resulted in an acceptable fit for both stigma scales, which measured social distance and negative attitudes and stereotyping, respectively. Multiple linear regression analyses identified Indian ethnicity, higher personal income and having close friends or family members who had been diagnosed with diabetes to be significantly associated with lower social distance scores while those aged 50–64 years and those with secondary and vocational education were significantly associated with higher social distance scores. Those with a personal income of SG$2,000–3,999 and SGD $6,000 and above, and those with close friends or family members diagnosed with diabetes were significantly associated with lower negative attitudes and stereotyping scores. In contrast those aged 35 years and above, those with primary education and below, and those of Malay ethnicity were significantly associated with higher negative attitudes and stereotyping scores.Conclusions: The study found a relatively low level of stigma toward diabetes in the general population of Singapore, although some stigmatizing beliefs emerged. While greater knowledge of diabetes could reduce stigma, anti-stigma messaging should be incorporated into the “War on Diabetes” programme in Singapore. (shrink)

Ras homolog enriched in the striatum (Rhes) is a striatal enriched protein that promotes the formation of thin membranous tubes resembling tunneling nanotubes (TNT)—“Rhes tunnels”—that connect neighboring cell and transport cargoes: vesicles and proteins between the neuronal cells. Here the literature on TNT‐like structures is reviewed, and the implications of Rhes‐mediated TNT, the mechanisms of its formation, and its potential in novel cell‐to‐cell communication in regulating striatal biology and disease are emphasized. Thought‐provoking ideas regarding how Rhes‐mediated TNT, if it exists, (...) in vivo, would radically change the way neurons communicate in the brain are discussed. (shrink)

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a description of an innovative web-based ethics module that was designed to integrate ethics education across four accounting courses over two years (second and third year courses) in a large Australian tertiary institution. Approach: The approach taken in designing the ethics web-based module was to base the foundations of the module on Rest’s (1976) ethical behavior model with the adoption of a longitudinal approach to thecoverage of financial reporting ethical issues. Practical (...) Implications: The key objectives of the module are to improve students’ awareness and sensitivity to accounting ethics, and to foster student learning in an interesting and stimulating manner, leading to in-depth understanding of accounting ethics. Originality/value of paper: This paper provides a description of an original web-based approach to delivering ethics education to accounting students across four university courses. Its value lies in not only the innovative and interactive ethics education approach but also in providing feedback from students and the profession. (shrink)

Community health workers (CHW) are the backbone of the public health system in developing countries. Little is known about the practice of ethics and professionalism in their work. This study was conducted to explore the experiential wisdom of ethics and professionalism among CHWs in Tamil Nadu. We conducted a qualitative study among 125 CHWs in six districts of Tamil Nadu. We found that the CHWs went beyond the call of their duty to do good to the community. Their conceptualization of (...) autonomy ranged from shared to full paternalistic decision making. The CHWs were sensitive to issues of privacy and confidentiality, but the discussion on these topics were limited. They reflected the societal norms of gender, class, and caste hierarchies in their work. They had to work amidst difficult power struggles and had their own innovative strategies to subvert power. In conclusion, there is a need for framing a code of ethics and professionalism for CHWs and training in ethics and professionalism for them to help them effectively deliberate on ethical issues. (shrink)

This essential text contains contributions from a wide range of fields and provides role models for feminist scientists. Including chapters from scientists and feminist scholars, the book presents a wide range of feminist science studies scholarship-from autobiographical narratives and experimental and theoretical projects, to teaching tools and courses and community-based projects.

The eighties and nineties have seen much debate about CEO compensation. Critics of CEO compensation support their contention of excessive and inequitable CEO pay based on a number of factors and premises. This paper examines the validity of these arguments. We show why many of these arguments fail to persuade, in part, because they attempt to determine propriety of CEO pay without having a definitive standard for comparison. Arguments based on comparisons between CEO pay and the pay of other individuals (...) or jobs or between CEO pay and firm performance are shown to be an insufficient mechanism to determine the appropriateness of CEO compensation. (shrink)