We all experience loneliness at some time in our lives and it often motivates people, consciously or otherwise, to enter treatment. Yet it is rarely explicitly addressed in psychoanalytic literature. Loneliness and Longing rectifies this oversight by thoroughly exploring this painful psychological state. In this book contributors address the inner sense of loneliness âe" that is feeling alone even in the company of others âe" by drawing on different aspects of loneliness and longing. Topics covered include: loneliness in the consulting (...) room the relationship between loneliness and love the effects of social networking and the internet how loneliness changes throughout the life-cycle healing the analystâe(tm)s loneliness. Loneliness and Longing draws on both theory and practice to discuss ways to help people to understand and cope with this important emotional state, encouraging them to make loneliness and longing less pervasive in their lives. This will be ideal reading for analysts, psychotherapists, and related practitioners facing the challenges of loneliness in their consulting rooms. (shrink)

We all experience loneliness at some time in our lives and it often motivates people, consciously or otherwise, to enter treatment. Yet it is rarely explicitly addressed in psychoanalytic literature. _Loneliness and Longing_ rectifies this oversight by thoroughly exploring this painful psychological state. In this book contributors address the inner sense of loneliness – that is feeling alone even in the company of others – by drawing on different aspects of loneliness and longing. Topics covered include: loneliness in the consulting (...) room the relationship between loneliness and love the effects of social networking and the internet how loneliness changes throughout the life-cycle healing the analyst’s loneliness. _Loneliness and Longing_ draws on both theory and practice to discuss ways to help people to understand and cope with this important emotional state, encouraging them to make loneliness and longing less pervasive in their lives. This will be ideal reading for analysts, psychotherapists, and related practitioners facing the challenges of loneliness in their consulting rooms. (shrink)

In this article, we outline a novel approach to understanding the role of responsibility in health promotion. Efforts to tackle chronic disease have led to an emphasis on personal responsibility and the identification of ways in which people can ‘take responsibility’ for their health by avoiding risk factors such as smoking and over-eating. We argue that the extent to which agents can be considered responsible for their health-related behaviour is limited, and as such, state health promotion which assumes certain forms (...) of moral responsibility should be avoided. This indicates that some approaches to health promotion ought not to be employed. We suggest, however, that another form of responsibility might be more appropriately identified. This is based on the claim that agents have prudential reasons to maintain their health, in order to pursue those things which make their lives go well—i.e. that maintenance of a certain level of health is rational for many agents, given their pleasures and plans. On this basis, we propose that agents have a self-regarding prudential responsibility to maintain their health. We outline the implications of a prudential responsibility approach to health promotion. (shrink)

This paper argues that there exists a collective epistemic state of ‘Broad Medical Uncertainty’ regarding the effectiveness of many medical interventions. We outline the features of BMU, and describe some of the main contributing factors. These include flaws in medical research methodologies, bias in publication practices, financial and other conflicts of interest, and features of how evidence is translated into practice. These result in a significant degree of uncertainty regarding the effectiveness of many medical treatments and unduly optimistic beliefs about (...) the benefit/harm profiles of such treatments. We argue for an ethical presumption in favour of openness regarding BMU as part of a ‘Corrective Response’. We then consider some objections to this position, including concerns that public honesty about flaws in medical research could undermine trust in healthcare institutions. We suggest that, as it stands, the Anti-Corrective Response is unconvincing. (shrink)

It is unclear whether someone’s responsibility for developing a disease or maintaining his or her health should affect what healthcare he or she receives. While this dispute continues, we suggest that, if responsibility is to play a role in healthcare, the concept must be rethought in order to reflect the sense in which many health-related behaviours occur repeatedly over time and are the product of more than one agent. Most philosophical accounts of responsibility are synchronic and individualistic; we indicate here (...) what paying more attention to the diachronic and dyadic aspects of responsibility might involve and what implications this could have for assessments of responsibility for health-related behaviour. (shrink)

Biological ontologies are used to organize, curate, and interpret the vast quantities of data arising from biological experiments. While this works well when using a single ontology, integrating multiple ontologies can be problematic, as they are developed independently, which can lead to incompatibilities. The Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies Foundry was created to address this by facilitating the development, harmonization, application, and sharing of ontologies, guided by a set of overarching principles. One challenge in reaching these goals was that the (...) OBO principles were not originally encoded in a precise fashion, and interpretation was subjective. Here we show how we have addressed this by formally encoding the OBO principles as operational rules and implementing a suite of automated validation checks and a dashboard for objectively evaluating each ontology’s compliance with each principle. This entailed a substantial effort to curate metadata across all ontologies and to coordinate with individual stakeholders. We have applied these checks across the full OBO suite of ontologies, revealing areas where individual ontologies require changes to conform to our principles. Our work demonstrates how a sizable federated community can be organized and evaluated on objective criteria that help improve overall quality and interoperability, which is vital for the sustenance of the OBO project and towards the overall goals of making data FAIR. Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. (shrink)

Health promotion efforts are commonly directed towards encouraging people to discard ‘unhealthy’ and adopt ‘healthy’ behaviours in order to tackle chronic disease. Typical targets for behaviour change interventions include diet, physical activity, smoking and alcohol consumption, sometimes described as ‘lifestyle behaviours.’ In this paper, I discuss how efforts to raise awareness of the impact of lifestyles on health, in seeking to communicate the need for people to change their behaviour, can contribute to a climate of ‘healthism’ and promote the moralisation (...) of people’s lifestyles. I begin by summarising recent trends in health promotion and introducing the notion of healthism, as described by Robert Crawford in the 1980s. One aspect of healthism is moralisation, which I outline and suggest is facilitated by efforts to promote health via information provision and educational strategies. I propose that perceived responsibility plays a role in mediating the tendency to moralise about health and behaviour. Since I argue that states ought to avoid direct and indirect moralisation of people’s health-related behaviour, this suggests states must be cautious with regard to the use of responsibility-indicating interventions to promote health. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has led a number of countries to introduce restrictive ‘lockdown’ policies on their citizens in order to control infection spread. Immunity passports have been proposed as a way of easing the harms of such policies, and could be used in conjunction with other strategies for infection control. These passports would permit those who test positive for COVID-19 antibodies to return to some of their normal behaviours, such as travelling more freely and returning to work. The introduction of (...) immunity passports raises a number of practical and ethical challenges. In this paper, we seek to review the challenges relating to various practical considerations, fairness issues, the risk to social cooperation and the impact on people’s civil liberties. We make tentative recommendations for the ethical introduction of immunity passports. (shrink)

Combatting chronic, lifestyle-related disease has become a healthcare priority in the developed world. The role personal responsibility should play in healthcare provision has growing pertinence given the growing significance of individual lifestyle choices for health. Media reporting focussing on the ‘bad behaviour’ of individuals suffering lifestyle-related disease, and policies aimed at encouraging ‘responsibilisation’ in healthcare highlight the importance of understanding the scope of responsibility ascriptions in this context. Research into the social determinants of health and psychological mechanisms of health behaviour (...) could undermine some commonly held and tacit assumptions about the moral responsibility of agents for the sorts of lifestyles they adopt. I use Philip Petit's conception of freedom as ‘fitness to be held responsible’ to consider the significance of some of this evidence for assessing the moral responsibility of agents. I propose that, in some cases, factors outside the agent's control may influence behaviour in such a way as to undermine her freedom along the three dimensions described by Pettit: freedom of action; a sense of identification with one's actions; and whether one's social position renders one vulnerable to pressure from more powerful others. (shrink)

Microfinance is the vanguard of financialization today. This is especially true in Colombia, where microfinance rivals any other type of formal credit. Entangled with Colombia’s micro-financialization is the phenomenon of microfinance corporations in joint ventures with Christian organizations that broker their microfinance programs. These faith-based corporations temper the surge in microfinance with ascetic discipline and the infusion of an entrepreneurial spirit. Economic discipline, say the microfinanciers, is required for what is referred to as ‘financial literacy’ and ‘financial inclusion’ programs that (...) instil a distinctly Christian corporate order. This article, based on 2 years of sustained fieldwork in Colombia, focuses on one such microfinance program run by a transnational Christian credit organization. With microfinance, souls are disciplined through debts and ideals of an ascetic prosperity. In the end, the article concludes that there is a Christian morality to financialized capitalism that is exercised at the level of the interior soul. (shrink)

Many countries are experiencing increasing levels of demand for access to assisted reproductive technologies. Policies regarding who can access ART and with what support from a collective purse are highly contested, raising questions about what state responses are justified. Whilst much of this debate has focused on the status of infertility as a disease, we argue that this is something of a distraction, since disease framing does not provide the far-reaching, robust justification for state support that proponents of ART seem (...) to suppose. Instead, we propose that debates about appropriate state responses should consider the various implications for health and broader well-being that may be associated with difficulties starting a family. We argue that the harms and disruption to valued life projects of subfertility-related suffering may provide a stronger basis for justifying state support in this context. Further, we suggest that, whilst ART may alleviate some of the harm resulting from subfertility, population-level considerations can indicate a broader range of interventions aimed at tackling different sources of subfertility-related harm, consistent with broader public health aims. (shrink)

Chater & Loewenstein make a persuasive case for focusing behavioural research and policy making on s- rather than i-interventions. This commentary highlights some conceptual and ethical issues that need to be addressed before such reform can be embraced. These include the need to adjudicate between different conceptions of “effectiveness,” and accounting for reasonable differences between how people weight different values.

This paper discusses the ethics of public health communication. We argue that a number of commonplace tools of public health communication risk qualifying as non-honest and question whether or not using such tools is ethically justified. First, we introduce the concept of honesty and suggest some reasons for thinking it is morally desirable. We then describe a number of common ways in which public health communication presents information about health-promoting interventions. These include the omission of information about the magnitude of (...) benefits people can expect from health-promoting interventions, and failure to report uncertainty associated with the outcomes of interventions. Next we outline some forms of behaviour which are generally recognised by philosophers as being non-honest, including deception, manipulation, and so on. Finally, we suggest that many of the public health communicative practices identified earlier share features with the non-honest behaviours described and suggest this warrants reflection upon whether such non-honesty is justified by the goals of public health communication. (shrink)

Many countries tightly ration access to publicly funded fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilisation. One basis for excluding people from access to IVF is their body mass index. In this paper, I consider a number of potential justifications for such a policy, based on claims about effectiveness and cost-efficiency, and reject these as unsupported by available evidence. I consider an alternative justification: that those whose subfertility results from avoidable behaviours for which they are responsible are less deserving of treatment. (...) I ultimately stop short of endorsing or rejecting such a justification, though highlight some reasons for thinking it is unlikely to be practicable. (shrink)

Currently, many women who are expecting to give birth have no option but to attempt vaginal delivery, since access to elective planned caesarean sections (PCS) in the absence of what is deemed to constitute ‘clinical need’ is variable. In this paper, we argue that PCS should be routinely offered to women who are expecting to give birth, and that the risks and benefits of PCS as compared with planned vaginal delivery should be discussed with them. Currently, discussions of elective PCS (...) arise in the context of what are called ‘Maternal Request Caesarean Sections’ (MRCS) and there is a good deal of support for the position that women who request PCS without clinical indication should be provided with them. Our argument goes further than support for acceding to requests for MRCS: we submit that healthcare practitioners caring for women with uncomplicated pregnancies have a positive duty to inform them of the option of PCS as opposed to assuming vaginal delivery as a default, and to provide (or arrange for the provision of) PCS if that is the woman's preferred manner of delivery. (shrink)

Organisations increasingly use digital nudges to influence their workforces’ behaviour without coercion or incentives. This can expose employees to arbitrary domination by infringing on their autonomy through manipulation and indoctrination. Nudges might furthermore give rise to the phenomenon of “organised immaturity.” Adopting a balanced approach between overly optimistic and dystopian standpoints, I propose a framework for determining the moral permissibility of digital nudging in the workplace. In this regard, I argue that not only should organisations provide pre-discursive justification of nudges (...) but they should also ensure that employees can challenge their implementation whenever necessary through legitimation procedures. Building on Rainer Forst’s concept of the right to justification, this article offers a way to combine contract- and deliberation-based theories for addressing questions in business ethics. I further introduce the concept of meta-autonomy as a capacity that employees can acquire to counter threats of arbitrary domination and to mitigate organised immaturity. (shrink)

This paper will consider the extent to which patients' dependence on clinical expertise when making medical decisions threatens patient autonomy. I start by discussing whether or not dependence on experts is prima facie troubling for autonomy and suggest that it is not. I then go on to consider doctors' and other healthcare professionals' status as ‘medical experts’ of the relevant sort and highlight a number of ways in which their expertise is likely to be deficient. I then consider how this (...) revised picture of medical expertise should lead us to view the potential threat to patient autonomy that results from depending on such ‘experts’. I argue that, whether or not patients are aware of the limitations of medical expertise, in practice it is difficult to do other than defer to medical advice, and this presents a threat to patient autonomy that should be addressed. I conclude by suggesting some ways in which this threat to autonomy might be mitigated. (shrink)

Let us first thank the four commentators who have taken the time to read and thoughtfully reflect on our paper. In that paper, we discuss how responsibility concepts must be sensitive to the temporal and social aspects of health-related behaviour, if responsibility is to play a role in health policy. This ‘if’ is a big one, and Hanna Pickard rightly challenges our position of neutrality with regard to whether or not responsibility should be incorporated into health policy.1 Pickard proposes that (...) responsibility should play a forward-looking role in health policy—used as a tool to facilitate and encourage healthy behaviours where it is reasonable to expect people to adopt such behaviours. While the conditions for such responsibility are similar to those involved in the backward-looking, desert-based responsibility we invoke, they do not warrant responses such as praise, blame, reward and punishment that may follow from desert-based responsibility. Pickard argues that even asking the question of ‘what would desert-based responsibility look like in these health contexts’ risks encouraging moralisation, stigma and blame, all of which have no place in healthcare. We agree that forward-looking responsibility could be an important tool in healthcare. We have offered …. (shrink)

The goal of this study was to determine if the level of preservice teachers’ economic literacy might serve as a gatekeeper to teaching economics competencies. The participants ( n=84) were teacher candidates in an elementary education program in their final methods courses prior to their teacher internship. The findings supported the intuitive belief that elementary teachers lack the economic literacy and confidence needed to teach economics concepts in the elementary curriculum. This deficit can serve as a gatekeeper to teaching economics (...) competencies leading to curricular disjuncture between the established curriculum and actual practice in the classroom. (shrink)

Ethical medical care of pregnant women in Australia should include the real provision of information regarding the risks and benefits of vaginal birth. Routinely obtaining consent for the different ways in which childbirth is commonly intervened on and the assistance involved (such as midwife-led care or a planned caesarean section) and providing sufficient information for women to evaluate the harms and benefits of the care on offer, would not only enable the empowerment of women but would align with the current (...) standard of care as established by Rogers v Whittaker. (shrink)

COVID-19 vaccine requirements have generated significant debate. Here, we argue that, on the evidence available, such policies should have recognised proof of natural immunity as a sufficient basis for exemption to vaccination requirements. We begin by distinguishing our argument from two implausible claims about natural immunity: natural immunity is superior to ‘artificial’ vaccine-induced immunity simply because it is ‘natural’ and it is better to acquire immunity through natural infection than via vaccination. We then briefly survey the evidence base for the (...) comparison between naturally acquired immunity and vaccine-induced immunity. While we clearly cannot settle the scientific debates on this point, we suggest that we lack clear and convincing scientific evidence that vaccine-induced immunity has a significantly higher protective effect than natural immunity. Since vaccine requirements represent a substantial infringement of individual liberty, as well as imposing other significant costs, they can only be justified if they are necessary for achieving a proportionate public health benefit. Without compelling evidence for the superiority of vaccine-induced immunity, it cannot be deemed necessary to require vaccination for those with natural immunity. Subjecting them to vaccine mandates is therefore not justified. We conclude by defending the standard of proof that this argument from necessity invokes, and address other pragmatic and practical considerations that may speak against natural immunity exemptions. There are no data in this work. (shrink)

Parental age at offspring conception often influences offspring longevity, but the mechanisms underlying this link are poorly understood. One mechanism that may be important is telomeres, highly conserved, repetitive sections of non‐coding DNA that form protective caps at chromosome ends and are often positively associated with longevity. Here, the potential pathways by which the age of the parents at the time of conception may impact offspring telomeres are described first, including direct effects on parental gamete telomeres and indirect effects on (...) offspring telomere loss during pre‐ or post‐natal development. Then a surge of recent studies demonstrating the effects of parental age on offspring telomeres in diverse taxa are reviewed. In doing so, important areas for future research and experimental approaches that will enhance the understanding of how and when these effects likely occur are highlighted. It is concluded by considering the potential evolutionary consequences of parental age on offspring telomeres. (shrink)

The effectiveness of multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) in tackling grand social and environmental challenges depends on productive dialogue among diverse parties. Facilitating such dialogue in turn entails building common ground in form of joint knowledge, beliefs, and suppositions. To explore how such common ground can be built, we study the role of different facilitators and their strategies for bridging the perspectives of competing stakeholder groups in two contrasting MSIs. The German Partnership for Sustainable Textiles was launched in an initially hostile communicative (...) environment, whereas the Fossil Free Sweden Initiative proceeded in a fertile communicative environment. We trace how the facilitators in these initiatives achieved common ground through three bridging strategies—communicative integration, temporal calibration, and process alignment—adapted to the communicative environments of these MSIs. In hostile communicative environments, facilitators achieve common ground by steering diverging stakeholder groups towards ‘reconciling’ their different language registers, knowledge bases, and meaning systems to ‘meet in the middle’ on points of agreement and shared interests. In fertile communicative environments characterised by greater mutual trust, facilitators can steer interactants to ‘strategically appropriate’ to the language, knowledge, and meaning system of a particular stakeholder group to win this group’s support. Our analysis contributes to a better understanding of how productive multi-stakeholder dialogue can be facilitated. (shrink)

Sociocultural norms against women can contribute to promoting intimate partner violence (IPV) and shape women's decision to disclose IPV. A cross‐cultural analysis of the existing literature is needed to present an overview of the influences of sociocultural norms on women's decisions regarding the disclosure of IPV across different cultural contexts. The purpose of the review was to synthesize published quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods (MMs) studies to identify known sociocultural norms across different cultures that may influence women's decision to disclose (...) IPV. The Whittemore and Knafl framework, Rayyan software, and PRISMA flow diagram were used. Databases included APA PsycInfo, CINAHL, PubMed, SocINDEX, and Women's Studies International. The quality of studies was assessed by the MMs appraisal tool. A total of 15 research articles written in English and published in peer‐reviewed journals were included. Main categories emerged: (1) stigma surrounding IPV disclosure, victimization, and divorce; (2) gender roles; (3) preserving family honor; and (4) Children's well‐being and future. A one‐size‐fits‐all approach is not adequate for women who are considering disclosing IPV. Findings underscore that regardless of residing in individualistic countries, those sociocultural norms related to traditional gender roles and gender inequality are still important barriers to the disclosure of IPV among women with collectivist roots. (shrink)

Recent financial fraud legislation such as the Dodd–Frank Act and the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (U.S. House of Representatives, Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, [H.R. 4173], 2010 ; U.S. House of Representatives, The Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, Public Law 107-204 [H.R. 3763], 2002 ) relies heavily on whistleblowers for enforcement, and offers protection and incentives for whistleblowers. However, little is known about many aspects of the whistleblowing decision, especially the effects of contextual and wrongdoing attributes on organizational (...) members’ willingness to report fraud. We extend the ethics literature by experimentally investigating how the nature of the wrongdoing and the awareness of those surrounding the whistleblower can influence whistleblowing. As predicted, we find that employees are less likely to report: (1) financial statement fraud than theft; (2) immaterial than material financial statement fraud; (3) when the wrongdoer is aware that the potential whistleblower has knowledge of the fraud; and (4) when others in addition to the wrongdoer are not aware of the fraud. Our findings extend whistleblowing research in several ways. For instance, prior research provides little evidence concerning the effects of fraud type, wrongdoer awareness, and others’ awareness on whistleblowing intentions. We also provide evidence that whistleblowing settings represent an exception to the well-accepted theory of diffusion of responsibility. Our participants are professionals who represent the likely pool of potential whistleblowers in organizations. (shrink)

Because no single person or group holds knowledge about all aspects of research, mechanisms are needed to support knowledge exchange and engagement. Expertise in the research setting necessarily includes scientific and methodological expertise, but also expertise gained through the experience of participating in research and/or being a recipient of research outcomes. Engagement is, by its nature, reciprocal and relational: the process of engaging research participants, patients, citizens and others brings them closer to the research but also brings the research closer (...) to them. When translating research into practice, engaging the public and other stakeholders is explicitly intended to make the outcomes of translation relevant to its constituency of users. In practice, engagement faces numerous challenges and is often time-consuming, expensive and ‘thorny’ work. We explore the epistemic and ontological considerations and implications of four common critiques of engagement methodologies that contest: representativeness, communication and articulation, impacts and outcome, and democracy. The ECOUTER methodology addresses problems of representation and epistemic foundationalism using a methodology that asks, “How could it be otherwise?” ECOUTER affords the possibility of engagement where spatial and temporal constraints are present, relying on saturation as a method of ‘keeping open’ the possible considerations that might emerge and including reflexive use of qualitative analytic methods. This paper describes the ECOUTER process, focusing on one worked example and detailing lessons learned from four other pilots. ECOUTER uses mind-mapping techniques to ‘open up’ engagement, iteratively and organically. ECOUTER aims to balance the breadth, accessibility and user-determination of the scope of engagement. An ECOUTER exercise comprises four stages: engagement and knowledge exchange; analysis of mindmap contributions; development of a conceptual schema ; and feedback, refinement and development of recommendations. ECOUTER refuses fixed truths but also refuses a fixed nature. Its promise lies in its flexibility, adaptability and openness. ECOUTER will be formed and re-formed by the needs and creativity of those who use it. (shrink)

We would like to thank each of the commentators on our feature article for their thoughtful engagement with our arguments. All the commentaries raise important questions about our proposed justification for natural immunity exemptions to COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Thankfully, for some of the points raised, we can simply signal our agreement. For instance, Reiss is correct to highlight that our article did not address the important US-centric considerations she helpfully raises and fruitfully discusses. We also agree with Williams about the (...) need to provide a clear rationale for mandates, and to obtain different kinds of data in support of possible policies.Unfortunately, we lack the space to engage with every one of the more critical comments raised in this rich set of commentaries; as such, in this response, we shall focus on a discussion of hybrid immunity, which underlies a number of different arguments evident in the commentaries, before concluding with some reflections responding to Lipsitch’s concern about the appropriate standard of proof in this context. (shrink)

As the rising costs of lifestyle-related diseases place increasing strain on public healthcare systems, the individual’s role in disease may be proposed as a healthcare rationing criterion. Literature thus far has largely focused on retrospective responsibility in healthcare. The concept of prospective responsibility, in the form of a lifestyle contract, warrants further investigation. The responsibilisation in healthcare debate also needs to take into account innovative developments in mobile health technology, such as wearable biometric devices and mobile apps, which may change (...) how we hold others accountable for their lifestyles. Little is known about public attitudes towards lifestyle contracts and the use of mobile health technology to hold people responsible in the context of healthcare. This paper has two components. Firstly, it details empirical findings from a survey of 81 members of the United Kingdom general public on public attitudes towards individual responsibility and rationing healthcare, prospective and retrospective responsibility, and the acceptability of lifestyle contracts in the context of mobile health technology. Secondly, we draw on the empirical findings and propose a model of prospective intention-based lifestyle contracts, which is both more aligned with public intuitions and less ethically objectionable than more traditional, retrospective models of responsibility in healthcare. (shrink)

FOSTER J, CHIANG F, HILLARD RC, HALL P and HEATH A. Nursing Inquiry 2010; 17: 309–316 Team process in community‐based participatory research on maternity care in the Dominican RepublicA cross‐cultural team consisting of US trained academic midwife researchers, Dominican nurses, and Dominican community leaders have partnered in this international nursing and midwifery community‐based participatory research (CBPR) project in the Dominican Republic to understand the community experience with publicly funded maternity services. The purpose of the study was to understand community perceptions (...) of maternity services. This article highlights the activities that the research team carried out during each phase of the research process, and how they established team identity, team trust, and team efficacy. This research has created a platform for new avenues for health providers and community to partner to improve maternal‐newborn care. Community‐based participatory research is one way forward to address the past and present inequities constitutive of global health disparities. (shrink)

The central nervous system uses feedback processes that occur at multiple time scales to control interactions with the environment. The long-latency response is the fastest process that directly involves cortical areas, with a motoneuron response measurable 50 ms following an imposed limb displacement. Several behavioral factors concerning perturbation mechanics and the active role of muscles prior or during the perturbation can modulate the long-latency response amplitude in the upper limbs, but the interactions among many of these factors had not been (...) systematically studied before. We conducted a behavioral study on thirteen healthy individuals to determine the effect and interaction of four behavioral factors – background muscle torque, perturbation direction, perturbation velocity, and task instruction – on the LLRa evoked from the flexor carpi radialis and extensor carpi ulnaris muscles after velocity-controlled wrist displacements. The effects of the four factors were quantified using both a 0D statistical analysis on the average perturbation-evoked EMG signal in the period corresponding to an LLR, and using a timeseries analysis of EMG signals. All factors significantly modulated LLRa, and their combination nonlinearly contributed to modulating the LLRa. Specifically, all the three-way interaction terms that could be computed without including the interaction between instruction and velocity significantly modulated the LLR. Analysis of the three-way interaction terms of the 0D model indicated that for the ECU muscle, the LLRa evoked when subjects are asked to maintain their muscle activation in response to the perturbations was greater than the one observed when subjects yielded to the perturbations, but this effect was not measured for muscles undergoing shortening or in absence of background muscle activation. Moreover, higher perturbation velocity increased the LLRa evoked from the stretched muscle in presence of a background torque, but no effects of velocity were measured in absence of background torque. Also, our analysis identified significant modulations of LLRa in muscles shortened by the perturbation, including an interaction between torque and velocity, and an effect of both torque and velocity. The time-series analysis indicated the significance of additional transient effects in the LLR region for muscles undergoing shortening. (shrink)

BackgroundThe increased risk of developing attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in extremely preterm infants is well-documented. Better understanding of perinatal risk factors, particularly those that are modifiable, can inform prevention efforts.MethodsWe examined data from the Extremely Low Gestational Age Newborns (ELGAN) Study. Participants were screened for ADHD at age 10 with the Child Symptom Inventory-4 (N = 734) and assessed at age 15 with a structured diagnostic interview (MINI-KID) to evaluate for the diagnosis of ADHD (N = 575). We studied associations (...) of pre-pregnancy maternal body mass index (BMI), pregestational and/or gestational diabetes, maternal smoking during pregnancy (MSDP), and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) with 10-year and 15-year ADHD outcomes. Relative risks were calculated using Poisson regression models with robust error variance, adjusted for maternal age, maternal educational status, use of food stamps, public insurance status, marital status at birth, and family history of ADHD. We defined ADHD as a positive screen on the CSI-4 at age 10 and/or meeting DSM-5 criteria at age 15 on the MINI-KID. We evaluated the robustness of the associations to broadening or restricting the definition of ADHD. We limited the analysis to individuals with IQ ≥ 70 to decrease confounding by cognitive functioning. We evaluated interactions between maternal BMI and diabetes status. We assessed for mediation of risk increase by alterations in inflammatory or neurotrophic protein levels in the first week of life.ResultsElevated maternal BMI and maternal diabetes were each associated with a 55–65% increase in risk of ADHD, with evidence of both additive and multiplicative interactions between the two exposures. MSDP and HDP were not associated with the risk of ADHD outcomes. There was some evidence for association of ADHD outcomes with high levels of inflammatory proteins or moderate levels of neurotrophic proteins, but there was no evidence that these mediated the risk associated with maternal BMI or diabetes.ConclusionContrary to previous population-based studies, MSDP and HDP did not predict ADHD outcomes in this extremely preterm cohort, but elevated maternal pre-pregnancy BMI, maternal diabetes, and perinatal inflammatory markers were associated with increased risk of ADHD at age 10 and/or 15, with positive interaction between pre-pregnancy BMI and maternal diabetes. (shrink)

A number of studies have tested the relationship between a corporation's social and ethical performance and its financial performance. In contrast, this is the first study to demonstrate a link between overall financial performance and an emphasis on ethics as an aspect of corporate governance. It identifies the 26.8 percent of the 500 largest U.S. public corporations that, in their annual report to shareholders, commit to ethical behavior toward their stakeholders or emphasize compliance with their code of conduct. The financial (...) performance of these corporations ranks higher than that of those who do not at a significance level of p = < 0.005, using the 1997 Business Week ranking which averages eight publicly-reported measures of historical financial performance. These findings should motivate more corporations to utilize the principles of Social and Ethical Accounting, Auditing and Reporting (SEAAR). (shrink)

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and conversational agents, emphasizing their potential benefits while also highlighting the need for vigilant monitoring to prevent unethical applications. Design/methodology/approach As AI becomes more prevalent in academia and research, it is crucial to explore ways to ensure ethical usage of the technology and to identify potentially unethical usage. This manuscript uses a popular AI chatbot to write the introduction and parts of the body of a (...) manuscript discussing conversational agents, the ethical usage of chatbots and ethical concerns for academic researchers. Findings The authors reveal which sections were written entirely by the AI using a conversational agent. This serves as a cautionary tale highlighting the importance of ethical considerations for researchers and students when using AI and how educators must be prepared for the increasing prevalence of AI in the academy and industry. Measures to mitigate potential unethical use of this evolving technology are also discussed in the manuscript. Originality/value As conversational agents and chatbots increase in society, it is crucial to understand how they will impact the community and how we can live with technology instead of fighting against it. (shrink)

The Theory of Planned Behavior predicts that a combination of attitudes, perceived norms, and perceived behavioral control predict intentions, and that intentions ultimately predict behavior. Previous studies have found that the TPB can predict students’ engagement in plagiarism. Furthermore, the General Theory of Crime suggests that self-control is particularly important in predicting engagement in unethical behavior such as plagiarism. In Study 1, we incorporated self-control in a TPB model and tested whether norms, attitudes, and self-control predicted intention to plagiarize and (...) plagiarism behavior. The best statistical fit for the path-analytic model was achieved when a direct path from self-control to plagiarism engagement was specified. In Study 2, we added a measure of perceived behavioral control and split the measurement of norms into descriptive and injunctive components. This study found that both self-control and perceived-behavioral control additively contributed to the prediction of plagiarism and the path-analytic model achieved its best fit when direct paths from perceived norms to plagiarism behavior were specified. These studies suggest that setting strong anti-plagiarism norms, such as by the use of honor codes, and seeking to enhance students’ self-control may reduce engagement in plagiarism. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 1, Page 16-18, January 2012.

Legal battles continue in the UK over the Government’s plans to transport asylum seekers arriving on British shores to Rwanda in East Africa. Originally announced as a system for ‘processing’ asylum seekers, the Government has subsequently made it clear that there would not be an option for asylum seekers to return to the UK. The arrangement forms part of a deal between the UK and Rwanda, with the UK promising to invest £120 m in economic growth and development in Rwanda, (...) along with financing the cost of the ‘offshored’ asylum operation.1 The Government states that the policy is designed to break the business model of people traffickers involved in facilitating hazardous trips across the Channel in small, overcrowded and unseaworthy craft, leading to multiple drownings. Critics argue that the policy will do nothing to stop desperate people from seeking refuge in the UK, that transferring already traumatised people to Rwanda – which has been criticised for its human rights record – is inhumane and potentially outwith international law. Medical bodies, including the BMA, along with refugee organisations have expressed serious concerns about the health impact of such a system of ‘offshoring’. An equivalent system in Australia has been notorious for the devastating health impacts on those ‘offshored’ to the Pacific islands of Manus and Naura. Unusually in the UK the offshoring proposals have been greeted by unanimous condemnation by the Church of England. The lawfulness of the process is also subject to question. On the 14 July, a plane carrying a small number of asylum seekers to Rwanda was halted shortly before take-off following an intervention by the European Court of Human Rights. The ECtHR, part of the Council of Europe, of which the UK is still a member, said an Iraqi man known as KN faced ‘a real …. (shrink)

Retaliation against whistleblowers is a well-recognized problem, yet there is little explanation for why uninvolved peers choose to retaliate through ostracism. We conduct two experiments in which participants take the role of a peer third-party observer of theft and subsequent whistleblowing. We manipulate injunctive norms and descriptive norms. Both experiments support the core of our theoretical model, based on social intuitionist theory, such that moral judgments of the acts of wrongdoing and whistleblowing influence the perceived likeability of each actor and (...) ultimately influence intention to ostracize each actor and indicate more willingness to ostracize the whistleblower than the wrongdoer. When we vary norms for the wrongdoing in Experiment 1, we find that descriptive and injunctive norms indirectly influence intentions to ostracize both the wrongdoer and whistleblower. These relationships are serially mediated by the observers’ moral judgments of the act and likeability of the actor. When we vary norms for whistleblowing in Experiment 2, the injunctive norm manipulation affected moral judgment of the action of whistleblowing, and we do not observe any other significant effects of the norm manipulations on moral judgments of the actions of wrongdoing or whistleblowing. (shrink)

Curt Verschoor on Ethics is a compilation of the best business ethics columns that will continue for years forward to be of lasting educational value. In a company setting, the columns can function as the basis for discussion on proper business ethics. In academia, the columns can serve as assigned readings over significant ethics events and issues. Some topics that are covered in the columns include: value of a strong ethical culture, studies of ethical and unethical culture, public and management (...) accounting ethics, ethics of executive compensation, international ethics standards, fraud case studies, small organization fraud studies, regulation and enforcement, whistleblowing, sustainability and integrated reporting, tax avoidance issues, students. (shrink)