Publication date: 11 June 2018 Source: Author: Fatemeh Nemati Sogolitappeh, Amjad Hedayat, Mehrdad Rezaee Arjmand, Mohamad Khaledian The purpose of the present study is to investigate the relationship between spiritual intelligence and emotional intelligence with resilience in undergraduate students. The population of the study included all students of Payam Noor University in Ghorveh during 2016-2017 academic years. According to the principles of statistical methodology for correlational studies, 100 students from different disciplines were selected as sample of the (...) study using simple random sampling method. In this research, King's Spiritual Intelligence Questionnaire, Bar-Ann 90-questions Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire, and Conner and Davison resilience questionnaire were used. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. The results of this study showed that there is a significant positive correlation between spiritual intelligence and emotional intelligence and resilience. Regression coefficients showed that spiritual intelligence and emotional intelligence predict 53.9% of the variation in resiliency. (shrink)

Arguing from inductive risk, Heather Douglas tried to show that the ideal of value-free science is completely unfounded. The argument has been widely acknowledged to be a strong argument against the ideal. In this paper, beginning with an analysis of the concept of an ideal, we argue that the value-free ideal is an epistemic ideal rather than a practical or ethical ideal. Then, we aim to show that the argument from inductive risk cannot be employed against the value-free ideal as (...) far as it is understood as an epistemic ideal. We try to show that the argument takes practical and ethical limitations of actual scientific enterprise into account to undermine the value-free ideal. But employing non-epistemic considerations makes the argument impotent against an epistemic ideal. (shrink)

High quality monitoring of mental health and well-being over an extended period is essential to understand how communities respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and how to best tailor interventions. Multiple community threats may also have cumulative impact on mental health, so examination across several contexts is important. The objective of this study is to report on changes in mental health and well-being in response to the Australian bushfires and COVID-19 pandemic. This study utilized an Experience-Sampling-Method, using the smartphone-based mood monitoring (...) application, MoodPrism. Participants were prompted once a day to complete a brief survey inquiring about symptoms of depression and anxiety, and several well-being indices, including arousal, emotional valence, self-esteem, motivation, social connectedness, meaning and purpose, and control. Participants were N = 755 Australians who downloaded and used MoodPrism, between 2018 and 2020. Results showed that anxiety symptoms significantly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, but not during the bushfires. This may be explained by concurrent feelings of social connectedness maintained during the bushfires but not during the pandemic. In contrast, depressive symptoms increased significantly during the bushfires, which maintained during the pandemic. Most indices of well-being decreased significantly during the bushfires, and further again during the pandemic. Study findings highlight the unique responses to the bushfire and COVID-19 crises, revealing specific areas of resilience and vulnerability. Such information can help inform the development of public health interventions or individual clinical treatment, to improve treatment approaches and preparedness for potential future community disasters. (shrink)

Sedlakova and Trachsel (2023) argue that on the one hand, conversational artificial intelligence (CAI) does not fulfill the necessary conditions for full attribution of agency, such as having consc...

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 91 Heft: 2 Seiten: 374-409.

Patients have the right to refuse their treatment; however, this refusal should be informed. We evaluated the quality of the informed refusal process in Iranian hospitals from patients' viewpoints. To this end, we developed a questionnaire that covered four key aspects of the informed refusal process including; information disclosure, voluntariness, comprehension, and provider-patient relationship. A total of 284 patients who refused their treatment from 12 teaching hospitals in the Isfahan Province, Iran, were recruited and surveyed to produce a convenience sample. (...) Patients' perceptions about the informed refusal process were scored and the mean scores of the four components were calculated. The findings showed that the practice of information disclosure was perceived to be moderate, however, comprehension, voluntariness and provider–patient relationship were perceived to be relatively good. We found that patients, who refused their care before any treatment had commenced, reported a lower quality of information disclosure and voluntariness. Patients informed by nurses and those who had not had a previous related admission, reported lower scores for comprehension and relationship. In conclusion, the process of obtaining informed refusal was relatively satisfactory except for levels of information disclosure. To improve current practices, Iranian patients need to be better informed about; different treatment options, consequences of treatment refusal, costs of not continuing treatment and follow-ups after refusal. Developing more informative refusal forms is needed. (shrink)

Mental health chatbots (MHCBs) designed to support individuals in coping with mental health issues are rapidly advancing. Currently, these MHCBs are predominantly used in commercial rather than clinical contexts, but this might change soon. The question is whether this use is ethically desirable. This paper addresses a critical yet understudied concern: assuming that MHCBs cannot have genuine emotions, how this assumption may affect psychotherapy, and consequently the quality of treatment outcomes. We argue that if MHCBs lack emotions, they cannot have (...) genuine (affective) empathy or utilise countertransference. Consequently, this gives reason to worry that MHCBs are (a) more liable to harm and (b) less likely to benefit patients than human therapists. We discuss some responses to this worry and conclude that further empirical research is necessary to determine whether these worries are valid. We conclude that, even if these worries are valid, it does not mean that we should never use MHCBs. By discussing the broader ethical debate on the clinical use of chatbots, we point towards how further research can help us establish ethical boundaries for how we should use mental health chatbots. (shrink)

Improving corporate governance, business sustainability, and accountability for business organizations appears to be a global trend. Society is holding public companies responsible and accountable for their business activities and their financial reporting process. The public, regulators, accounting profession, and academic community are also taking a closer look at colleges and universities to find ways to hold these institutions more accountable for achieving their mission of providing higher education with relevant curriculum. Three areas that have recently received long-awaited attention are business (...) sustainability, professional ethics, and corporate governance. Business schools play an important and everlasting role in preparing the next generation of business leaders who possess life-long education and training of acting with integrity and upholding the highest level of ethical conduct and the heavy burden of public trust. These next generations of business leaders must understand the importance of ethical conduct, business sustainability and corporate governance corporations to our society and the complexity of financial reporting. Thus, business curriculum must reflect promotion of ethical behavior, professional accountability, and personal integrity taught to business students. Corporate governance, business sustainability, ethics including accountability, integrity, and transparency must be integrated throughout the business curriculum. The book is organized into three modules. Module I presents business sustainability, its importance, five dimensions of business sustainability performance including economic, governance, social, ethics and environmental (EGSEE), sustainability reporting and assurance and sustainability research and education. Module II provides the emergence of corporate governance, a framework for discussion of important functions of corporate governance including oversight, managerial, compliance, advisory, auditing, and monitoring as well as and integrating corporate governance into accounting research and business curricula. Module III discusses the importance of business and professional ethics, workplace ethics and trends in ethics research and education. (shrink)

Voluntary disclosures of sustainability information have recently received considerable attention by investors, regulators, and public companies in improving reliability and integrity of corporate reporting. We examine the association between the quantity and quality of sustainability disclosures and earnings quality in the context of corporate ethical value and culture. We posit that sustainability disclosures of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance reports are linked to earnings quality, because of the importance of both earnings quality and ESG sustainability disclosures to investors and (...) trustworthiness of corporate reporting. We collect our sample of 35,110 firm-year observations between 1999 and 2015. Using both difference-in-difference tests and OLS regression, we find that sustainability disclosure quantity is positively associated with innate earnings quality and negatively correlated with discretionary earnings quality in mitigating managerial earnings manipulation and unethical opportunistic reporting behavior. Further tests illustrate that sustainability disclosure quality can strengthen the positive relation between innate earnings quality and sustainability disclosure quantity and mitigate the negative relation between discretionary earnings quality and sustainability disclosure quantity. Finally, additional tests suggest that the relation between earnings quality and sustainability disclosure quantity is moderated by corporate structure and prior-year sustainability performance. Our results provide policy, practical, and research implications as ESG sustainability reporting is being integrated into corporate culture and business models. (shrink)

The report of the Treadway Commission suggests that all public companies should establish effective written codes of conduct in promoting honorable behavior by corporations. The need for written "codes of conduct" for businesses is evident in the current literature. However, there is not sufficient evidence regarding the implication of codes of conduct in a college. Academic dishonesty has become an important issue in institutions of higher education. Codes of conduct can also provide a basis for ethical behavior in colleges and (...) universities. Survey respondents were generally supportive of the concept of codes of ethical conduct in colleges and universities. The results of this study indicate that college codes of conduct tend to follow a "low road" approach. The results also suggest the following needed improvements in college and university codes of conduct: (1) greater emphasis on preventing financial, scientific, and academic fraud; (2) more inclusion of the faculty in the process; and (3) establishment of a proper process for implementation of the code. (shrink)

This article examines whether the charitable giving amount and likelihood of firm response to catastrophic events relate to firms’ ownership type using a unique dataset of listed firms in China, where state ownership is still prevalent. Based on the data of Chinese firms’ response to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, we find that the extent of corporate contributions for state-owned firms following this disaster is less than that for private firms. State-owned firms are also less likely to respond in␣this disaster compared (...) to private firms. The results also␣reveal that firm size, profitability, geography, cash resource available, and leverage affect firms’ philanthropic disaster response behavior in China. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, EarlyView.

This paper examines ethical violations committed by Certified Public Accountants in Puerto Rico in the 2002–2010 period and the related disciplinary actions taken by the local regulatory bodies. The institutional settings for the accounting profession in PR are different from those of the United States. Ethical complaints are investigated by the PR Society of CPAs and evaluated based on the Code of Professional Conduct of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, although most CPAs in PR are not affiliated with (...) the AICPA. Our study is based on data provided by the PR Society of CPAs that is not publicly available. We examine the association between the occurrence of the ethical violations and certain variables such as gender, type of practice performed by the CPA, and whether the CPA participates in a peer review program. Results of a multiple correspondence analysis suggest that not being a member of the AICPA, practicing as a sole practitioner, and not participating in a peer review program seem to be more associated with the occurrences of ethical violations by CPAs. We compare our findings with prior research on ethical infractions committed by CPAs in the United States and find some differences attributable to the institutional settings in PR. Overall, our results suggest the importance of codes of conduct in the accounting profession and compliance with such ethical guidelines by practicing accountants. (shrink)

Today, health systems around the world are under pressure to create greater value for patients and society [81, p. 1, 119]; increasing access, improving client orientation and responsiveness, reducing medical errors and safety, restraining utilization via managed care, and implementing priority allocation of resources for high-burden health problems are examples of strategies towards this end. The quality paradigm by virtue of its strategic consumer focus and its methods for achieving operational excellence has proved an effective approach for creating higher value (...) in many sectors. If applied in a deliberate and holistic manner, the quality paradigm can bring about a more cost-effective organization of the health systems. In this article, we apply quality concepts to healthcare in a conceptual format; we characterize the health system’s customers and outputs with their quality dimensions. The product of this effort is a blueprint for a customer-driven health system which identifies six types of customers, nine types of outputs and the associated operations. As a preliminary step, a new analysis and definition of health and disease is provided. Rethinking the structure of health system in this manner and the related conceptual model can guide medical research, health sciences education, and health services policy, and help the practitioner to integrate all modern trends in healthcare delivery. (shrink)

Positive psychology focuses on the constructive effects of positive emotions on human behavior. Considering the recent plethoric research on positive emotions and SLA, this study pursues two important aims. The first aim is to find out whether there is any significant disparity between EFL teachers' and learners' views on an inventory of positive psychology in language learning which was fostered by researchers. The second goal is to find out whether teachers' practices conform to their views on IPPLL and those expressed (...) in the interview which was conducted with them. To this end, a 54-item questionnaire was developed and the revised questionnaire was administered to 385 learners. The results indicated that the teachers, in comparison with the learners, scored higher on all categories of the IPPLL. Moreover, unlike what they had expressed on the questionnaire and in the interview, the teachers did not capitalize on positive emotions as evinced in both teachers' practice and learners' experience with learning English. Implications of the findings for teacher education courses are presented. (shrink)

Prior research suggests that corporate credibility is associated with firm financial performance in developed countries. This article examines whether corporate credibility is related to firm performance using Economic Observer's rating of corporate credibility in China, the largest emerging market in the world. Based on a four-stage valuation model, we find that more reputable and credible firms outperform those with low ratings by almost 20% in 3-year stock returns and have better 3-year net profit margins, return on equity, and sales growth. (...) This study is the first to directly examine the relationship between corporate credibility and firm performance in emerging markets such as China, and our results confirm that firms with high credibility exhibit better financial and market performance at least in the following 3 years. (shrink)

Integrating large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 into medical ethics is a novel concept, and understanding the effectiveness of these models in aiding ethicists with decision-making can have significant implications for the healthcare sector. Thus, the objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of GPT-4 in responding to complex medical ethical vignettes and to gauge its utility and limitations for aiding medical ethicists. Using a mixed-methods, cross-sectional survey approach, a panel of six ethicists assessed LLM-generated responses to eight (...) ethical vignettes. The main outcomes measured were relevance, reasoning, depth, technical and non-technical clarity, as well as acceptability of GPT-4’s responses. The readability of the responses was also assessed. Of the six metrics evaluating the effectiveness of GPT-4’s responses, the overall mean score was 4.1/5. GPT-4 was rated highest in providing technical (4.7/5) and non-technical clarity (4.4/5), whereas the lowest rated metrics were depth (3.8/5) and acceptability (3.8/5). There was poor-to-moderate inter-rater reliability characterised by an intraclass coefficient of 0.54 (95% CI: 0.30 to 0.71). Based on panellist feedback, GPT-4 was able to identify and articulate key ethical issues but struggled to appreciate the nuanced aspects of ethical dilemmas and misapplied certain moral principles. This study reveals limitations in the ability of GPT-4 to appreciate the depth and nuanced acceptability of real-world ethical dilemmas, particularly those that require a thorough understanding of relational complexities and context-specific values. Ongoing evaluation of LLM capabilities within medical ethics remains paramount, and further refinement is needed before it can be used effectively in clinical settings. (shrink)

This article examines whether the charitable giving amount and likelihood of firm response to catastrophic events relate to firms' ownership type using a unique dataset of listed firms in China, where state ownership is still prevalent. Based on the data of Chinese firms' response to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, we find that the extent of corporate contributions for state-owned firms following this disaster is less than that for private firms. State-owned firms are also less likely to respond in this disaster (...) compared to private firms. The results also reveal that firm size, profitability, geography, cash resource available, and leverage affect firms' philanthropic disaster response behavior in China. (shrink)

Scientific representation is an interesting topic for philosophers of science, many of whom have recently explored it from different points of view. There are currently two competing approaches to the issue: cognitive and non-cognitive, and each of them claims its own merits over the other. This article tries to provide a hybrid theory of scientific representation, called Two-Dimensional Theory of Scientific Representation, which has the merits of the two accounts and is free of their shortcomings. To do this, we will (...) argue that although scientific representation needs to use the notion of intentionality, such a notion is defined and realized in a simply structural form contrary to what cognitive approach says about intentionality. After a short introduction, the second part of the paper is devoted to introducing theories of scientific representation briefly. In the third part, the structural accounts of representation will be criticized. The next step is to introduce the two-dimensional theory which involves two key components: fixing and structural fitness. It will be argued that fitness is an objective and non-intentional relation, while fixing is intentional. (shrink)

Hedgehog is an important morphogenic signal that directs pattern formation during embryogenesis, but its activity also remains present through adult life. It is now becoming increasingly clear that during the reproductive phase of life and beyond it continues to direct cell renewal (which is essential to combat the chronic environmental stress to which the body is constantly exposed) and counteracts vascular, osteolytic and sometimes oncological insults to the body. Conversely, down‐regulation of hedgehog signalling is associated with ageing‐related diseases such as (...) type 2 diabetes, neurodegeneration, atherosclerosis and osteoporosis. Hence, in this essay we argue that hedgehog signalling is not only important at the start of life, but also constitutes an important anti‐geriatric influence, and that enhanced understanding of its properties may contribute to developing rational strategies for healthy ageing and prevention of ageing‐related diseases.Also watch the Video Abstract. (shrink)

We investigate variations of the Zitterbewegung frequency of electron due to an external static and uniform magnetic field employing the expectation value quantum approach, and compare our results with the classical model of spinning particles. We demonstrate that these two so far compatible approaches are not in agreement in the presence of an external uniform static magnetic field, in which the classical approach breaks the usual symmetry of free particles and antiparticles states, i.e. it leads to CP violation. Hence, regarding (...) the Zitterbewegung frequency of electron, the classical approach in the presence of an external magnetic field is unlikely to correctly describe the spin of electron, while the quantum approach does, as expected. We also show that the results obtained via the expectation value are in close agreement with the quantum approach of the Heisenberg picture derived in the literature. However, the method we use is capable of being compared with the classical approach regarding the spin aspects. The classical interpretation of spin produced by the altered Zitterbewegung frequency, in the presence of an external magnetic field, are discussed. (shrink)

The present study aims at proposing a time series-based network public opinion emergency management decision support algorithm for the problems of low decision accuracy and long decision time in traditional similar algorithms. In this proposed algorithm, after the time series data are preprocessed, the association rules of the original indicator data of network public opinion emergencies are mined, the original indicator data matrix of NPOEs will be constructed, and the improved local linear embedding approach will be employed to obtain the (...) original indicator data of NPOEs. After carrying out the preprocessing according to the preprocessing results, the objective weight of the emergency decision index is calculated through the interval value fuzzy information entropy measurement of the emergency decision index, the emergency management decision support model is constructed, and the emergency management decision support of the NPOE is realized. The simulation experiment results show that the proposed algorithm has a better effect on the decision-making effect of the management of NPOEs, and a higher decision-making efficiency is achieved. (shrink)

Even though the COVID-19 pandemic has represented an intense period of stress and anxiety for individuals, it has also been an opportunity for firms to engage in cause-related marketing initiatives as a means of providing support and helping them cope with this global pandemic. This study analyzes the influence of cause–brand fit and cause–brand alliance on customer-based legitimacy and reputation. This study also examines the mediating and moderating roles of trust and betrayal, respectively. Data were collected from 455 participants during (...) the first wave of the pandemic, especially during the first lockdown. The results contribute to unveiling the economic and societal outcomes of cause-related marketing. The findings also enrich the antecedents of the legitimacy and reputation conferred by customers. (shrink)

Muḥammad Amīn b. Mīrzā Muḥammad Zamān Bukhārī, Muḥīṭ al-Tavārīkh. Edited by Mehrdad Fallahzadeh and Forogh Hashabeiky. Studies in Persian Cultural History, vol. 4. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Pp. ix + 112 + 388. $216, €167.