Compared to other health care professions such as medicine, nursing and pharmacy, few studies have been conducted to examine the nature of practice errors in occupational and physical therapy. In an ongoing study to determine root causes, typographies and impact of occupational and physical therapy error on patients, focus group interviews have been conducted across the United States. A substantial number of harmful practice errors and/or other patient safety events (deviations or accidents) have been identified. Often these events have had (...) moral dimensions that troubled the therapist involved. In this article, six of these transcribed cases are analyzed, using predominant bioethical theories, ethical principles and professional codes of ethics. The cases and their analyses are intended to be exemplary, improving the readers’ ability to discern and critically address similar such events. Several patient safety strategies are suggested that might have prevented the events described in these cases. (shrink)

Revue attentive à l’histoire des femmes et du genre depuis la fin des années 1970, Le mouvement social consacre son dernier numéro de 2008 à l’histoire des réfugié(e)s. Ce volume fait partie de la série de publications regroupant en partie des textes présentés au colloque international Histoire, Genre et Migration (Mondes atlantiques, xixe et xxe siècles) qui s’est tenu à Paris en mars 2006. Si le titre du numéro marque le genre féminin entre parenthèses, cinq des six articles portent princip...

This article reports on an inquiry that investigated the development of ba constructions in early childhood Mandarin. All cases of ba construction were extracted from the Early Childhood Mandarin Corpus collected from 168 preschoolers aged 2;6, 3;6, 4;6, and 5;6. Early Childhood Mandarin Corpus, University of Hong Kong. Data analysis indicated that: Mandarin-speaking children produced a repertoire of 11 types of ba construction, and the children in the youngest age group were able to produce six types of them; children at (...) 4 years old experienced a critical developmental period of pragmatic use, and at 5 years old they had attained cognitive and linguistic maturity in understanding the semantic and syntactic features of ba constructions; and there was a significant age effect on the production of three types of ba construction, but no significant association between the children’s gender and their production of ba constructions. These findings offer fresh insights into understanding Chinese children’s innate capacity to understand the co-occurrence constraints concerning the syntactic, semantic and verb features inherent in ba construction, and their developmental ability to denote telic events by resorting to the appropriate ba sentence patterns. (shrink)

The emergence and growth of the comparable worth or pay-equity movement in the United States in the last six years signals a major shift in strategies for women's economic advancement—away from affirmative action strategies aimed at job integration, toward upgrading conditions for gender-segregated work itself. Although much has been written on comparable worth from technical and structural perspectives, my research explores a different set of questions. From qualitative research on two California localities, I ask what the issue represents to those (...) involved and how they perceive their interests. As a political movement, comparable worth overcomes the narrow base of affirmative action. While building on the rising expectations affirmative action encouraged, comparable worth helps improve job conditions without attacking the gendered division of labor. However, comparable worth does not unite all women, it pits women against men of the same class, and may exacerbate the plight of women in the lowest level of the economy. Nevertheless, as an interim strategy, it is a worthy feminist goal, particularly as it addresses the concerns of working-class women. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Elementary Students Quilting through Social StudiesLinda Bennett (bio)IntroductionIt is enchanting when over twenty students' quilt squares make a quilt. The common yet diverse techniques for making a quilt transform the students' quilt squares into a shared quilting experience. A quilt made by students in one classroom can demonstrate a unique characteristic of each student by combining their squares into a quilt about a common theme in the social studies (...) curriculum. The quilts become a lasting record of the students' depictions of the theme under study and contributions to a class project. The six quilts described in this article demonstrate how to make class quilts using social studies themes. The lessons learned by the students and teachers are shared and additional resources are provided to extend the experiences of elementary students quilting through social studies.The Elementary CurriculumOne of the first decisions when making a quilt in elementary school is how the quilt connects to the curriculum. Each year I ask my child's classroom teacher what social studies themes are in the curriculum, and with the help of the classroom teacher, the students design a quilt that matches the curriculum. The teacher determines how much class time to use for discussion of the theme and the best quilting technique for the students.The typical elementary social studies curriculum centers around self, family, school, and community in kindergarten through third grades, and the local state (in this case, Missouri) and the United States in fourth and fifth grades. Quilts can depict social studies strands such as culture, history, [End Page 90] geography, psychology, sociology, or political science. Families, friends, the school, local or national history, state or national symbols, and social issues are among the themes of quilts made by first through fifth grade students. As a parent who is also a social studies educator, I contribute to my children's elementary education by making quilts about the social studies curriculum with the students in their classrooms. Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 1."Rights of the Child" quilt.Quilting can integrate many curricula in elementary school. When elementary students make a class quilt based on a theme in the social studies curriculum, they are integrating content and skills from literacy, mathematics, science, or art into the social studies expectations. Within language arts, students read, write, and research the social studies theme and the art of quilt making. Students use mathematical skills when measuring, cutting, and stitching. Science is integrated into social studies through themes such nature, global issues, or changes in the environment.Visual arts objectives for elementary students are intertwined into the quilting lessons. The artistic design of the quilt is the result of each student's fabric selection, design, and applications to the squares. The students use their hands, hearts, and minds as they make the quilt squares, and they learn the purpose and value of the art of quilting through the connections to the social studies curriculum.Sharing the QuiltsMy desire is for the students' enthusiasm for quilting to inspire other elementary school teachers to quilt with students. Several specific quilts are discussed below; first through third grade students have made quilts depicting the themes of families, friends, and the Rights of the Child, while older students (in fourth and fifth grade) made the pioneer quilt and the freedom quilt. [End Page 91] Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 2."Families" quilt with hearts.For the "Rights of the Child" quilt (see figure 1), made by first and second graders, the students considered the rights of children while the teacher read A Children's Chorus and For Every Child a Better World.1 Each student made a quilt square about a right using fabric crayons. The quilt hung in the local public library to celebrate the rights of the child. Next to the quilt was a diagram with the first name of the student and the theme of his or her square.2Learning the names of friends and sharing friendships in the classroom can be the focus of social studies for young students. To make the quilt squares in the friendship quilt, the students traced their hand... (shrink)

Special volume of "Thaumàzein - Rivista di Filosofia" dedicated to the theme of Socratic Eudaimonia and care for others. It is a multilingual volume comprising twenty papers divided into six sections with an introduction by Linda Napolitano. Edited by Santiago Chame, Donald Morrison, and Linda Napolitano. -/- Despite the appearances given by certain texts, the moral psychology of Socrates needs not imply selfishness. On the contrary, a close look at passages in Plato and Xenophon (see Plato, Meno 77-78; (...) Protagoras 358; Gorgias 466-468; Euthydemus 278; Lysis 219; Xenophon, Memorabilia III 9, 4-5) suggests that the “egoist”’s welfare depends upon the welfare of others (i.e. family, friends or the whole city). Since the welfare of his family, friends and city is part of his own eudaimonìa, the “egoist” (phìlautos) has a direct and intrinsic motive to promote the welfare of these others. -/- This multilingual issue explores the role that other peoples’ welfare plays in Socratic ethics. Special attention is paid to test-cases in which the principle that moral action is always good only for the agent seems to have no validity. I.e., under which circumstances is the self-sacrifice for the sake of others (such as the soldier’s self-sacrifice on the battlefield) good for the agent (as in Alcibiades I 115a-116d)? Essays deal with contradictions or tensions of this sort, and relate them to more general views on eudaimonìa held within Socratic literature. Comparison between different Socratic authors is used as a means to identify the distinctive features of Socratic eudaimonìa if compared to other Greek theories of happiness, such as the Aristotelian theory of philautìa (NE IX, 1166a-1166b; 1168a-1169b). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Keeping Faith with Human Rights by Linda HoganCarol S. RobbKeeping Faith with Human Rights Linda Hogan WASHINGTON, DC: GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2015. 240 PP. $29.95As her title suggests, the relationship between theological and secular traditions in human rights discourse is one important topic of Hogan's book. A second topic is the significant challenge to both theological and secular grounding of human rights norms coming from postcolonial, (...) feminist, and postmodern critics.Regarding the relationship between theological and secular traditions in human rights discourse, Hogan finds evidence of theological treatment of "rights" as early as jurisprudence of the twelfth century; early modern Calvinists then drew on classical and Catholic resources for rights talk. More recently, contemporary human rights discourse has come to function independently of theism as "the common language of humanity" (12). Some human rights theorists claim there is no longer any possible rapprochement with Christian tradition because human rights are grounded in liberalism, which has ruptured with Christianity. Some theologians concur, finding the limitations of liberalism so significant as to prohibit accommodation. Liberalism here means a conviction that human beings can construct an account of morality that is binding for all peoples and in all places, the content of which could be known through universal reason (38); it is furthermore a conviction that human persons are distinct, autonomous individuals whose social and political contexts, cultures, and religious beliefs should neither decisively construct nor constrict individuals' human rights (32).Despite these difficulties, Hogan believes there are good historical and theological reasons to "keep faith with human rights." During the last six decades, human rights discourse has welcomed the articulation of tradition-specific accounts of the grounding of human rights, some secular and some religious, satisfied that there are different ways of accounting for why human beings can be said to have universal rights. It has flourished as a result. The morality of [End Page 208] human rights becomes more durable when citizens draw upon their own communities' narratives and doctrines to make their case.The pluralist approach to justifying human rights theory and politics is consistent with the weight Hogan gives to postcolonial, feminist, and postmodern critiques of the liberalism undergirding the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, embedded in three main pillars of human rights discourse: the nature of personhood, the structure of moral truth, and the role of community. Regarding how the subject of human rights is constructed, she argues that the manner in which we understand our subjectivity is intimately connected with and dependent upon our respective world views, not a consequence of a universal account of human nature (86). On moral truth, Hogan argues that rationality is contingent and justification is always contextual, and yet we do not have to accept a relativist position in respect to truth (104). In her discussion of the role of community, it would have been appropriate to include consideration of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.Hogan encourages human rights theorists to pay serious attention to the critics of human rights, insofar as the political grounding for it appears to be fracturing, even as appeals to its protections are spreading. I recognize the appeal of many of the critiques of liberalism, yet I found myself asking, what besides the discourse would change in light of them? How would the formulation of the norms and their justifiability be changed? Hogan avoids projecting such consequences but warns the reader who acknowledges the need for pluralism that they will need a critical, genealogical approach to the traditions, one that recognizes the embeddedness of power struggles over who authorizes what and who gets included in the community's traditions.Carol S. RobbSan Francisco Theological Seminary and The Graduate Theological UnionCopyright © 2017 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

In December 1990, an empirical study assessing hospital ethics committee (HEC) success was completed. Success was measured in terms of the number of interventions undertaken by the committees in four functional areas: education, guidelines development, prospective and retrospective case review. Some commonly quoted success determinants, such as multidisciplinarity, physician chairpersons, and a high institutional status of the chairperson were found not to foster success; the latter two, actually decreased committee success.

Although tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) is the only medication approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for acute ischemic stroke, there is no consensus about the need for informed consent for its use. As a result, hospitals throughout the U.S. have varying requirements regarding obtaining informed consent from patients for the use of tPA, ranging from no requirement for informed consent to a requirement for verbal or written informed consent. We conducted a study to (1) determine current (...) beliefs about obtaining patients’ informed consent for tPA among a large group of stroke clinicians and (2) identify the ethical, clinical, and organizational factors that influence tPA consent practices. Semi-structured interviews were conducted by trained and experienced investigators and research staff to identify key barriers to implementing acute stroke services. Part of the interview explored current beliefs and practices around informed consent for tPA.This was a multicenter study that included 38 Veterans Health Administration (VHA) hospital locations. Participants were 68 stroke team clinicians, serving primarily on the neurology (35 percent) or emergency medicine (41 percent) service. We conducted thematic analysis based on principles of grounded theory to identify codes about consent for tPA. We used interpretive convergence to ensure consistency among the individual investigators’ codes and to ensure that all of the investigators agreed on coding and themes.We found that 38 percent of the stroke clinicians did not believe any form of consent was necessary for tPA, 47 percent thought that some form of consent was necessary, and 15 percent were unsure. Clinicians who believed tPA required informed consent were divided on whether consent should be written (40 percent) or verbal (60 percent). We identified three factors describing clinicians’ attitudes about consent: (1) legal and policy factors, (2) ethical factors, and (3) medical factors.The lack of consensus regarding consent for tPA creates the potential for delays in treatment, uneasiness among clinicians, and legal liability. The identified factors provide a potential framework to guide discussions about developing a standard of care for acquiring the informed consent of patients for the administration of tPA. (shrink)

The dramatic increases in the survival rate of prematurely born, very low birth weight infants (<1500 g) have created concern about the possible sequelae experienced by these children, in terms of both severe problems and less severe learning and behavior problems. The methodological difficulties involved in answering questions about the outcomes of these children, including the choice of appropriate outcome measures, the analysis of individual variation, the problems associated with dropouts, the relevant comparison groups, the importance of survival rate, and (...) the question of correcting for the degree of prematurity, are considered. In spite of the difficulties in interpreting the studies, the research indicates that many premature children have learning disabilities, particularly in the perceptual and visual motor functioning and some aspects of language and reading. In addition, ethical issues related to prematurity are discussed, including parents’ rights, decision-making, and cost and treatment. Finally, some solutions are proposed involving the use of risk indices for the early detection of developmental problems. (shrink)

As hospital ethics committees become more common in American hospitals, their degree of success should be measured. Just as new technological procedures are evaluated, institutional innovations should also be evaluated. Currently, little is known about the success of HECs, and some authors have wondered whether these committees serve any useful purpose at all. This article reviews the descriptive results of a 1990 study on HEC success as they pertain to the question of how to measure committee success.

In 1983, we were declared a nation at risk. Now, over a decade later the declaration seems to ring even more true, but for different reasons. Our communities have become killing fields, and the assassins that stalk our streets are our children. We sit frozen in horror as the daily news bombards us with the images of children murdering other children and adults for the thrill of it, as a rite of initiation, as an act of racial hatred, for profit, (...) and in anger and retaliation. (shrink)

In 1965, Vice-President Hubert Humphrey addressing the White House Conference on Education stated that our country would go down in history for havin used its educational system to overcome problems of illiteracy, unemployment, crime and violence, urban decay, and even war among nations. Yet, within a few years cries from concerned citizens questioned the ability of the schools to even teach children how to read and write.

(1987). French and American women in the age of democratic revolution, 1770–1815: A comparative perspective. History of European Ideas: Vol. 8, No. 4-5, pp. 597-609.

An onslaught of ethically questionable actions by top government, business, and religious leaders during the 1980s has brought the issue of ethics in decision making to the forefront of public consciousness. This study examines the ethical orientation of university students in four decision-making situations. The dependent variable — ethical orientation toward work-related decisions — is measured through student responses to questions following four work-related vignettes. Possible responses to each vignette are structured to permit categorization of respondents into two broad orientations: (...) egoistic and ethical. Independent variables are academic major, ethics in business orientation, gender, and religiosity. Generally, students tended to choose an ethical orientation over an egoistic orientation in each vignette. Business majors were generally no less likely to choose an ethical orientation toward work-related decisions than nonbusiness majors. Respondents characterized by moral unity (belief in the consistency between general ethical principles and work-related ethical standards) were more likely to have an ethical orientation toward work-related decisions than those subscribing to the amoral theory of business. Females showed a consistent tendency to be more ethically oriented toward work-related decisions than males. Finally, respondents high on religiosity tended to be more ethically oriented. (shrink)

This paper is a response to Ray's recent proposal that the intellectual property rights attached to potentially life saving/life sustaining innovations should become public goods in cases where markets are either unable or unwilling to pay for the creation of the intellectual property. Using a free market approach to innovation based on Western moral philosophy, we suggest that treating intellectually protected life saving/life sustaining innovations as public goods will likely reduce social welfare over the long term.

This paper explores the role of strategic conversations in corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy formation. The authors suggest that explicitly engaging stakeholders in the CSR strategy-making process, through the mechanism of strategic conversations, will minimize future stakeholder concerns and enhance CSR strategy making. In addition, suggestions for future research are offered to enable a better understanding of effective strategic conversation processes in CSR strategy making and the resulting performance outcomes.

This paper examines the discursive transformation of the historic American public market from that of a municipally regulated institution intended to ensure fair trade and equitable food distribution to “a public place” that emphasizes community identity and sociability. Using a semiotic analysis of interviews with 31 market managers of 30 historic and contemporary American public markets, data from historic documents, and multiple site visits, we compare the social construction of the contemporary public market to farmers markets, supermarkets, and the early (...) twentieth century public market. We analyze the meanings managers create in the contemporary public market to understand the administrative rationalities within which the public market operates. Our analysis reveals evidence of competing imaginaries active in the public market, organized around broad notions of “public benefit,” “community culture” and “institutional viability.” We propose that these tensions are embedded in the public market as an institution historically implicated in regimes of food distribution. In the contemporary context, we conclude, public markets largely substitute the spectacle of community and the image of an historic public life for a legally instated commitment to the just governance of food systems. (shrink)

Water is the major contributor to the eating and keeping qualities and structure of baked products. Its management and control during preparation, processing, baking, cooling and storage is essential for the optimisation of product quality. This successful and highly practical volume describes in detail the role and control of water in the formation of cake batters, bread, pastry and biscuit doughs, their subsequent processing and the baked product. Now in a fully revised and updated second edition, the book has been (...) expanded and developed through the inclusion of new information and references related to the formation and processing of batters and dough into baked products. The new edition includes a selection of case studies based on practical experience in the manufacture and optimisation of baked products. Each case study, illustrated as appropriate, considers the various roles that water may play in different manufacturing contexts. The book is aimed at food scientists and technologists in bakery companies; ingredient suppliers; flour millers; researchers and students in academic food science departments. (shrink)

This article relates the emergence of a group of faculty researchers utilizing complexity science approaches. The narrative emerges from three projects combining research into complexity, communities, and technologies. Details of how the research was initiated, and the nature and quality of the conversational method, are provided. In addition, theoretical concepts that were consciously applied and others that arose through insights from the data as it was collected are discussed. Although this is like most real narratives, a never-ending story, it concludes (...) with a presentation of some of the ideas that separate complexity-informed research from other paradigms. (shrink)

Social Responsibility (SA) 8000 registration/certification is a response by the business community to address consumer and investor perceptions of the importance of emerging global social issues such as child labor, worker rights, discrimination, compensation, etc. As more U.S. and European firms outsource production to less developed nations, social, environmental, and reputational issues have become more important. SA8000 is a series of behavioral standards that represents a comprehensive, and potentially global, corporate social responsibility registration system that provides a standard of socially (...) responsible treatment of workers. This paper explores how SA8000 adoption may impact a firm's marketing activities. (shrink)

This paper discusses how adoption of the social dimensions of the marketing concept may unintentionally restrict innovation and corporate entrepreneurship, ultimately reducing social welfare. The impact of social marketing on innovation and entrepreneurship is discussed using the case of multinational pharmaceutical firms that are under pressure when marketing HIV treatments in poor countries.The argument this paper supports is that social welfare may eventually be diminished if forced social responsibility is imposed. The case of providing subsidized AIDS medication to less developed (...) nations is used to illustrate how social blackmail may result in less innovation, entrepreneurship, and product development efforts by the pharmaceutical industry, ultimately reducing social welfare. (shrink)

Understanding factors that motivate farmers to perform conservation behaviors is seen as key to enhancing efforts to address agri-environmental challenges. This study uses survey data collected from 277 farmers in the La Moine River watershed in western Illinois to develop new measures of farmers’ environmental attitudes and examine their influence on current usage of agricultural best management practices (BMPs). The results suggest that a Dual Interest Theory approach reflecting two separate, competing psychological frames representing a stewardship view of the environment (...) and a farm as a business (or profit maximization) view of the environment are present within the decision making domain. Using a cluster analysis technique to examine the interaction between these attitude frames reveals four groups of farmers who hold distinct views of the environment. Further exploration of these distinct belief systems reveals little evidence of differences in participation or willingness to participate in agricultural BMPs; however, we observe significant differences between these groups with regard to their willingness to support rural conservation planning priorities that address agri-environmental challenges. Further discussion focuses on the implications of these interactive dual interest typologies and the implications of these findings on efforts to engage farmers in conservation efforts. (shrink)

Through the lens of the Health Belief Model and Protection Motivation Theory, we analyzed interviews of 36 agricultural advisors in Indiana and Nebraska to understand their appraisals of climate change risk, related decision making processes and subsequent risk management advice to producers. Most advisors interviewed accept that weather events are a risk for US Midwestern agriculture; however, they are more concerned about tangible threats such as crop prices. There is not much concern about climate change among agricultural advisors. Management practices (...) that could help producers adapt to climate change were more likely to be recommended by conservation and Extension advisors, while financial and crop advisors focused more upon season-to-season decision making. We contend that the agricultural community should integrate long-term thinking as part of farm decision making processes and that agricultural advisors are in a prime position to influence producers. In the face of increasing extreme weather events, climatologists and advisors should work more closely to reach a shared understanding of the risks posed to agriculture by climate change. (shrink)

Attempts to understand farmer conservation behavior based on quantitative socio-demographic, attitude, and awareness variables have been largely inconclusive. In order to understand fully how farmers are making conservation decisions, 32 in-depth interviews were conducted in the Eagle Creek watershed in central Indiana. Coding for environmental attitudes and practice adoption revealed several dominant themes, representing multi-dimensional aspects of environmental attitudes. Farmers who were motivated by off-farm environmental benefits and those who identified responsibilities to others (stewardship) were most likely to adopt conservation (...) practices. Those farmers who focused on the farm as business and were most concerned about profitability were less likely to adopt practices. The notion of environmental stewardship in particular was found to be much more complex than the way it is traditionally measured in quantitative studies. The interplay between on-farm and off-farm benefits to practice adoption is an issue that quantitative studies largely do not address. This study seeks to increase understanding of farmers’ environmental attitudes and the connections to conservation behavior. (shrink)