Important marine mammal areas (IMMAs)—‘discrete habitat areas, important for one or more marine mammal species, that have the potential to be delineated and managed for conservation’ (IUCN Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force 2018, p. 3)—were introduced in 2014 by the IUCN Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force to support marine mammal and wider ocean conservation. IMMAs provide decision-makers with a user-friendly, actionable tool to inform them of the whereabouts of (...) habitat important for marine mammal survival. However, in view of their non-prescriptive, evidence-based and biocentric nature, the conservation effectiveness of IMMAs is strictly dependent on politicians’ willingness to make use of them. It has been the customary task of advocacy non-governmental organisations to lobby decision-makers to stimulate respect for environmental law, but the scientific community is increasingly joining this effort. Scientists can effectively strengthen a healthy relationship between scientific objectivity and political advocacy without damaging the credibility of conservation science. Thus, those undertaking the identification of IMMAs can be among those responsible for strongly advocating the implementation of IMMAs and other conservation initiatives. (shrink)

Important marine mammal areas (IMMAs)—‘discrete habitat areas, important for one or more marine mammal species, that have the potential to be delineated and managed for conservation’ (IUCN Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force 2018, p. 3)—were introduced in 2014 by the IUCN Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force to support marine mammal and wider ocean conservation. IMMAs provide decision-makers with a user-friendly, actionable tool to inform them of the whereabouts of (...) habitat important for marine mammal survival. However, in view of their non-prescriptive, evidence-based and biocentric nature, the conservation effectiveness of IMMAs is strictly dependent on politicians’ willingness to make use of them. It has been the customary task of advocacy non-governmental organisations to lobby decision-makers to stimulate respect for environmental law, but the scientific community is increasingly joining this effort. Scientists can effectively strengthen a healthy relationship between scientific objectivity and political advocacy without damaging the credibility of conservation science. Thus, those undertaking the identification of IMMAs can be among those responsible for strongly advocating the implementation of IMMAs and other conservation initiatives. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: “Interspecies ethics” The Dolphin/Tuna Controversy Dolphins in Captivity So What Do We Do? The Ethics of Human/Dolphin Contact: Two Final Thoughts.

This paper investigates how Food Security (FS) is enacted in a southern region of Italy, characterized by high rates of mafias-related activity, arguing for the inclusion in the research of socio-cultural features and power relationships to explain how Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) can facilitate individual empowerment and community resilience. In fact, while FS entails legality and social justice, AFNs are intended as ‘instrumental value’ to reach the ‘terminal value’ of FS within an urban community in Sicily, as well as the (...) space where citizens can act their individual and collective political food choices. Building on the social psychology literature and on ecologic-psychopolitical models (Christens and Perkins in J Commun Psychol 36(2):214–231, 2008), we discuss the case of Addiopizzo, a citizen project promoting the legality of their AFNs through the rejection of the payment of the pizzo (the protection money asked by racket) in the local food chain. The aim is to problematize the extent to which FS is able to re-localize ‘legal’ food in the market. This was done by reconnecting citizens to their space and territory in a socio-cultural context at risk where agro-food producers, retailers and consumers are not free to fully enact their citizenship agency because of a widespread illegal structure. The research findings show that Addiopizzo project enables citizens to act their social power: agro-food producers and retailers by subscribing to formal requirements based on values that reject racket; consumers by purchasing Addiopizzo labelled products; individuals and groups by participating further open-to-the-public activities that promote everyday politically oriented behaviour. The citizen empowerment and community resilience can be exerted within AFNs as they are interconnected paths of reflexivity and social learning within social adaptation. The paper concludes by advocating the role of urban communities as a pivotal agent to maintain positive social adaptations, where AFNs work as a socio-cultural synthesis of traditional and alternative producer–consumer ways of interaction, which are embodied in the FS value. (shrink)

In this paper the author focuses on Australian land management and in particular on the environmental management issues that could have been prompted by the High Court recognition in 1996 (in Wik Peoples v. The State of Queensland) that native title to land and pastoral leaseholdings can co‐exist. Drawing on themes of self‐determination and co‐existence, the paper looks at more specific topics such as aboriginal title to land—what has been called land rights or native title in Australia—and some implications of (...) that for land, sea and resource management. Central to this analysis are competing theories of Aboriginal land management and links between Aboriginal traditional knowledge and conservation of species. These are illustrated through the marine mammal, the dugong. The Australian debates lead to the Canadian debates and then to Scandinavia and the role of the Sami people in protection and management of the Arctic region. Issues of indigenous self determination inevitably provide an overall theme to these discussions. As a matter of global concern, the paper asks, but does not decide, whether indigenous peoples may manage fragile eco‐systems more effectively than outsiders. It maintains that what is important in this context is a broader question. This concerns how culturally inclusive land and resource management can emerge from recognition of indigenous land and human rights and how comparative developments can provide crucial cross‐jurisdictional information for future developments and opportunities in the interests of environmental conservation. (shrink)

Definition of the problem: Recently, ”Dolly” has been confirmed by cloning several other mammals. In January 1999 it was even reported that Korean researchers first of all had cloned the first human embryo. In the following article some basic biological and technical aspects of modern cloning strategies, such as embryo splitting and nuclear transplantation, will be described. Subsequently, a short critical analysis will discuss the ethical problem of cloning human beings. Since the German Embryo Protection Act from January 1991 (...) substantial progress in cloning technology has been made, so that the principal question now is whether the Act is still sufficient to forbid human cloning or whether it should be revised. Arguments and conclusion: With advanced technical progress human cloning now seems to be possible. From the ethical point of view, the cloning of human beings should be rejected, as it offends the fundamental value of human dignity. On the other hand, the German Embryo Protection Act is antiquated and does not provide the required protection. This article may stimulate further discussion in the fields of ethics and jurisdiction, especially regarding to the Embryo Protection Act. (shrink)

Alors que beaucoup d’études mettent l’accent sur le moment et la façon dont les femmes participent politiquement en tant que citoyennes, Sandra Reineke s’intéresse plutôt au passage des femmes du statut de citoyennes à celui d’agents politiques. Aussi la question de la performativité des actes de lecture et d’écriture par les femmes est-elle posée et discutée. Les femmes auraient fait de la lecture et de l’écriture des vectrices de l’idée de communauté. Celle-ci serait caractérisée par une id...

This article explores the norms that govern regular users’ acts of sharing content on social networking sites. Many debates on how to counteract misinformation on Social Networking Sites focus on the epistemic norms of testimony, implicitly assuming that the users’ acts of sharing should fall under the same norms as those for posting original content. I challenge this assumption by proposing a non-epistemic interpretation of (mis) information sharing on social networking sites which I construe as infrastructures for forms of life (...) found online. Misinformation sharing belongs more in the realm of rumour spreading and gossiping rather than in the information-giving language games. However, the norms for sharing cannot be fixed in advance, as these emerge at the interaction between the platforms’ explicit rules, local norms established by user practices, and a meta-norm of sociality. This unpredictability does not leave us with a normative void as an important user responsibility still remains, namely that of making the context of the sharing gesture explicit. If users will clarify how their gestures of sharing are meant to be interpreted by others, they will implicitly assume responsibility for possible misunderstandings based on omissions, and the harms of shared misinformation can be diminished. (shrink)

The human intestines are constantly under the influence of numerous pathological factors: enteropathogenic microorganisms, food antigens, physico‐chemical stress associated with digestion and bacterial metabolism, therefore it must be provided with a system of protection against adverse impact. Recent studies have shown that Paneth cells play a crucial role in maintaining homeostasis of the small intestines. Paneth cells perform many vital functions aimed at maintaining a homeostatic balance between normal microbiota, infectious pathogens and the human body, regulate the qualitative composition (...) and number of intestinal microorganisms, prevent the introduction of potentially pathogenic species, and protect stem cells from damage. Paneth cells take part in adaptive and protective‐inflammatory reactions. Paneth cells maintain dynamic balance between microbial populations, and the macroorganism, preventing the development of intestinal infections and cancer. They play a crucial role in gastrointestinal homeostasis and may be key factors in the etiopathological progression of intestinal diseases. (shrink)

The digital revolution is growing at breahnech speed. The basis of this revolution is the techno-economic paradigm, however with new instruments. Instruments reaching a planetary level and influence the relationship of our personality with the world. The disinformacion is a trail of gunpowder for the emergence, increment and dissemination of racist and xenophobic concepts. This change calls into question democratic valves. In this text we will expose, discuss and demonstrate the consequences of this state of affairs that we live in (...) today. We must unberstand the mechanisms of how this occurs, the new instruments used, the conection between sources of information, the paths that go of persuasion of ideas to impossingacts. At long last, we will defend a position of those who believe that democratic living should be extended to everyone who lives on this tinyplanet. In short, we will defend a position against the absolutization of desinformation. We will use the concept of “Aparatus” used by Karl Jaspers, in the middle of the last century, to demonstrate the strength and influence of desinformation on the masses that coalesc and act from the simple touch of the cell phone. (shrink)

Macphail’s comparative approach to intelligence focused on associative processes, an orientation inconsistent with more multifaceted lay and scientific understandings of the term. His ultimate emphasis on associative processes indicated few differences in intelligence among vertebrates. We explore options more attuned to common definitions by considering intelligence in terms of richness of representations of the world, the interconnectivity of those representations, the ability to flexibly change those connections, knowledge, and individual differences. We focus on marine mammals, represented by the amphibious (...) pinnipeds and the aquatic cetaceans and sirenians, as animals that transitioned from a terrestrial existence to an aquatic one, experiencing major changes in ecological pressures. They adapted with morphological transformations related to streamlining the body, physiological changes in respiration and thermoregulation, and sensory/perceptual changes, including echolocation capabilities and diminished olfaction in many cetaceans, both in-air and underwater visual focus, and enhanced senses of touch in pinnipeds and sirenians. Having a terrestrial foundation on which aquatic capacities were overlaid likely affected their cognitive abilities. Vocal and behavioral observational learning capabilities in the wild and in laboratory experiments suggest versatility in group coordination. Empirical reports on aspects of intelligent behavior like problem-solving, spatial learning, and concept learning by various species of cetaceans and pinnipeds, suggest rich cognitive abilities. The high energy demands of the brain suggest brain-intelligence relationships might be fruitful areas for the study when specific hypotheses are considered, e.g., brain mapping indicates hypertrophy of specific sensory areas in marine mammals. Modern neuroimaging techniques provide ways to study neural connectivity, and the patterns of connections between sensory, motor, and other cortical regions provide a biological framework for exploring how animals represent and flexibly use information in navigating and learning about their environment. At this stage of marine mammal research, it would still be prudent to follow Macphail’s caution that it is premature to make strong comparative statements without more empirical evidence, but an approach that includes learning more about how animals flexibly link information across multiple representations could be a productive way of comparing species by allowing them to use their specific strengths within comparative tasks. (shrink)

In this article I investigate online misinformation from a media philosophy perspective. I, thus move away from the debate focused on the semantic content, concerned with what is true or not about misinformation. I argue rather that online misinformation is the effect of an informational climate promoted by user micro-behaviours such as liking, sharing, and posting. Misinformation online is explained as the effect of an informational environment saturated with and shaped by techno-images in which most users act automatically under the (...) constant assault of stirred emotions, a state resembling what media philosopher Vilém Flusser has called techno-magical consciousness. I describe three ways in which images function on social media to induce this distinctive, uncritical mode of consciousness, and complement Flusser’s explanation with insights from the phenomenology of emotions. (shrink)

Rendell and Whitehead argue persuasively that individual foraging specializations, if socially learned, are examples of cetacean culture. However, they discount ecological variation experienced by individuals within a population as a factor in such behavior. I suggest that ecological variation may play an important role in individual foraging specializations and describe several ecological parameters that may help us understand the high frequency of this interesting behavior in the marine habitat.

The use of anecdotes is not a viable research strategy to study animal culture. Social learning processes can often be documented with careful quantitative analyses of observational data. Unfortunately, suggestions that killer whales engage in teaching are entirely based on subjective interpretations of qualitative observations. Thus, of teaching in killer whales cannot be used to argue for the occurrence of culture in marine mammals.

This article draws attention to a form of injustice in intimate relationships of care that is largely ignored in discussions about the legal rights and obligations of intimate partners. This form of injustice is connected to a feature of caregiving I call “flexibility,” in virtue of which caregiving requires “skills of flexibility.” I argue that the demands placed by these skills on caregivers create constraints that amount to “vulnerability to oppression.” To lift these constraints, caregivers are entitled to open-ended responses (...) to their work, responses that would enable them to pursue their own projects while providing care. Instead of protecting individual choice of intimate relationships, marriage law should protect these entitlements. (shrink)

Conducting marine mammal research can raise several important ethical issues. For example, the continuation of whaling for commercial purposes despite the international moratorium provides opportunities for scientists to obtain data and tissue samples. In 2021 we analysed 35 peer-reviewed papers reporting research based on collaborations with Icelandic whalers. Results highlighted little consideration or understanding of the legal and ethical issues associated with the deliberate killing of whales amongst those researchers, funding bodies, universities and journals involved. Ethical statements were (...) rarely provided. Those that were written were incomplete. Whilst research using whaling data may seem acceptable to some, it often becomes hard to justify when subject to scrutiny by the media and the public. Thus, there is a particular danger of reputational harm for early career researchers who may become unwittingly involved in such activities. Here we also consider the broader variety of ethical issues raised by non-lethal research (both historical and recent) on marine mammals including tagging and biopsy. We discuss instances where study animals were harmed or even killed and where the public mistook tags for harpoons. Without clear guidelines, reviewers and journal editors are put in an impossible position when considering whether to reject papers on ethical grounds. We propose that for such studies, universities, funders, journals, and permit issuers must require ethical assessments and that journals more effectively implement their existing policies on publishing ethical statements. The professional marine mammal societies need to work together to produce modern ethical guidance. Such guidance should require transparency in the provenance of data and samples while including advice on law, welfare issues, involvement of local scientists, and offshoring. Furthermore, it should require appraisal of and justification for the absolute necessity of invasive procedures. As is already the case in biomedical disciplines, ethical statements should be required in marine mammal science. (shrink)

Healthcare workers who are on the front line of coronavirus disease 2019 and are also undergoing shift schedules face long work hours with few pauses, experience desynchronization of their circadian rhythm, and an imbalance between work hours effort and reward in saving lives, resulting in an impact on work capacity, aggravated by the lack of personal protective equipment, few resources and precarious infrastructure, and fear of contracting the virus and contaminating family members. Some consequences are sleep deprivation, chronic insomnia, stress-related (...) sleep disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder. These sleep alterations critically affect mental health, precipitating or perpetuating anxiety, stress, and depression, resulting in the inability to regulate positive and negative emotions. Pre-existing sleep disorders are an important risk factor for the development and maintenance of PSTD when individuals are exposed to an important stressor such as a COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, how an individual regulates the emotion associated with worries during daytime functioning impacts nighttime sleep, precipitating and perpetuating difficulties in sleeping. All of these changes in sleep and emotional regulation also alter the immune system. Sleep deprivation is commonly associated with chronic inflammatory diseases, due to the desynchronizations in circadian rhythms, causing possible psychophysiological disorders and impaired neuroimmune-endocrine homeostasis. From this perspective, we clarify in this article how sleep disorders affect the immune system and emotional regulation, explaining their phenomenological and neurobiological mechanisms, and discussing elements of cognitive and behavioral coping for health professionals to adopt and manage a healthier sleep pattern in the COVID-19 outbreak. (shrink)

“It was a peculiarly beautiful book. its smooth creamy paper, a little yellowed by age, was of a kind that had not been manufactured for at least forty years past. . . . Even with nothing written in it, it was a compromising possession. The thing that he was about to do was to open a diary. This was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws), but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would (...) be punished by death, or at least by twenty-five years in a forced-labour camp.” The Party fears blank paper. On every street corner, you can find newspapers printed With propaganda but blank paper, now that’s nearly impossible to find. For nearly half a century no more notebooks were produced, no blank papers allowed to touch the hands of the masses. This restriction seems odd. Why is blank paper dangerous? What is treacherous about a nice leather-bound book With creamy pages? The very act of Writing on a blank paper is thoughtcrime and Winston knows it. The intriguing question for us is: What’s at stake in the potential of a blank page? There is political potential in a blank page, it could contain a subversive message that could be passed on to others, yet blank paper to Write on is much Weaker than owning a manual printing press hidden in a basement. If Winston Wanted to instigate rebellion against the Party, he Would not handwrite manifestos, he should print them somehow. There’s something else going on with Writing your thoughts in a notebook, and that is related to Newspeak. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the structure of hope and trust from a phenomenological perspective in order to analyze the kinds of beliefs, valuings, and practical dispositions involved in them. I claim that there are some basic aspects of the social world that would be inconceivable without the feeling components of these attitudes. However, since these attitudes are only rational in as far as they involve rational beliefs, valuings, and practical assumptions, a complex theory of reason that deals with these (...) three domains is necessary to understand what is at stake in them. Accordingly, I attempt to sketch central aspects of the Husserlian pluralistic conception of reason and highlight the way in which, when they are rational, the valuings involved both in hope and trust open new possibilities to act in rational or meaningful ways. This leads me to stress the role of the feelings involved in these attitudes, for I claim that such valuings or axiological assessments are based on them. I argue that hope allows us to act rationally in the face of uncertainty and what lies beyond our control. In the final part I elaborate on the idea that trust is founded on hope. I examine what happens when hope is expressed and how being found trustworthy by others implies being capable of establishing all kinds of social relationships, including relationships in which the trusted one is dominated. This opens the possibility of raising ethical questions concerning trusting and responding to the trust of others. (shrink)

Sense and Uncertainty presents a phenomenological account of the possibility of rational action amid the challenges posed by violence, volatile conditions, uncertain outcomes, and social dependence. The book asks us to consider the following: We are often forced through violence to do things that do not make sense for us except to avoid retaliations, punishments, or the various evils that others might inflict on us. We inhabit a world that escapes our control. This involves living in uncertainty concerning the things (...) that we might suffer and do, that is, the things that might happen to us and the results of our actions. We are dependent on others and collaborate with them in ways that make it impossible to fully understand the sense of our own actions and practical intentions. Rationality involves insightful thinking about the world and our emotional responses to it, something we do in our everyday lives, whether consciously or without awareness. Sense and Uncertainty attempts to make explicit and to clarify the implications of this conceptually neglected aspect of our rationality: namely, that it involves paying attention to our emotions and values. An ethical life in which we can act meaningfully in the face of violence and uncertainty, and in which we can make sense of our vulnerability and dependence on others, demands that we think about and seek insight into how we love, why we hope, and in whom or in what we trust. The phenomenological ethics presented in Sense and Uncertainty draws on the works of Western canonical philosophers like Edmund Husserl, Max Scheler, Simone de Beauvoir, Anthony Steinbock, and José Ortega y Gasset, as well as on those of Latin American thinkers such as Luis Villoro, Rita Segato, and Augusto Salazar Bondy, among others. (shrink)

In a world undergoing rapid, large-scale technological change, the phenomenon of technosocial disruption is receiving increasing scholarly and societal attention. While the phenomenon is most actively delineated in philosophy of technology, it is also receiving growing attention within a different area of philosophy, namely the so-called “4E Cognition” approach to philosophy of mind. Despite this shared interest in technosocial disruption, there is relatively little exchange between the theorizing going on in these two different areas of philosophy. One of our paper's (...) two main aims is programmatic: to motivate the fruitfulness of such an exchange. We do this by turning to a specific case of technosocial disruption, namely Teenage Cancel Culture [TCC]. TCC cannot be disentangled from the introduction of social media platforms [SMPs] into modern day social life. Hence, we will speak of SMP-Afforded TCC. SPM-afforded TCC is a phenomenon fretted over by societal actors but strikingly ignored in academic research. In our effort to narrow this knowledge gap, we analyze SMP-afforded TCC from a perspective of technosocial disruption enriched by insights from 4E-Cognition. This brings out a specific worry about the role of SMPs in the social lives of teenagers. We argue that SMP-afforded TCC disrupts the social relational domains within which teenagers develop, maintain, and express their precarious social identities, by creating social affordances that are hostile to healthy risky interpersonal identity-exploration. As such, SMP-afforded TCC not only cancels particular individuals for particular acts; it may also pre-emptively cancel a certain way of being a social self, namely a healthy social risk-taker. We conclude the paper by proposing several potential routes for mitigating the perniciously disruptive effects of SMP-afforded TCC and identifying future areas for research. (shrink)

Resumen En este artículo reflexiono sobre la posibilidad de conceptualizar los derechos humanos como hechos institucionales, lo cual permite enmarcarlos en una perspectiva más amplia que las meramente jurídicas y morales. La propuesta se basa en la ontología social de John Searle, aunque intento replantearla desde la fenomenología de Edmund Husserl y la teoría de los actos sociales de Adolf Reinach. En la parte final introduzco problemáticas relacionadas con el papel de los Estados nacionales en la institucionalización de los derechos (...) humanos. Para ello me apoyo en la idea de Hannah Arendt de que los derechos humanos presuponen el derecho a tener derechos y la pongo en relación con observaciones más recientes de especialistas.In this paper I reflect on the possibility of conceptualizing human rights as institutional facts. This aims to frame them in a broader perspective than a merely legal or moral one. The proposal is based on John Searle’s social ontology, but I attempt to think it over with the support of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology and Adolf Reinach’s theory of social acts. In the final part I set forward problems related with the role of national States in institutionalizing human rights. To elaborate this point, I draw on Hannah Arendt’s idea that human rights presuppose the right to have rights and relate it with more recent observations of experts. (shrink)

Marine ecosystems are in serious troubles globally, largely due to the failures of fishery resources management. To restore and conserve fishery ecosystems, we need new and effective governance systems urgently. This research focuses on fisheries management in ancient China. We found that from 5,000 years ago till early modern era, Chinese ancestors had been constantly enthusiastic about sustainable utilization of fisheries resources and natural balance of fishery development. They developed numerous rigorous policies and regulations to guide people to act (...) on natural laws. Being detailed and scientific, the legal systems had gained gratifying enforcement, due to official efforts and folks’ voluntary participation in resource management. In-depth analyses show that people’s consciousness of ecological conservation was derived from the edification of kinds of ancient eco-ethical wisdom, such as totemism, nature worship, Zhou Yi , Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Mohism, etc. All this Chinese classical wisdom have the same cores: “Nature and Man in One” spirit, frugality and “All things are equal” concept. The findings show that eco-ethical thinking is never inconsistent with social ethic systems, and it’s of great importance to give legal effect to usual ecological moral claims and eco-ethical requirements of the public in protecting the environment. The eco-ethical wisdom is efficient in assisting and urging people to fulfill humans’ obligation for nature. Finally, it’s believed that present world fisheries management will benefit a lot from all these ancient Chinese thoughts and practices. People are expected to make the most of the eco-ethical wisdom, strengthen fishery legislation and fully stimulate their voluntary participation in both marine fishery resources conservation and fishery cyclic economy. (shrink)

Personal data protection is an ethical issue. In this study we analyzed how research ethics committees (RECs) and data protection officers (DPOs) handle personal data protection issues in research protocols. We conducted a mixed-methods study. We included heads (or delegated representatives) of RECs and DPOs from universities and public research institutes in Croatia. The participants provided information about data protection issues in research and their mutual collaboration on those issues through structured interviews that contained closed and (...) open-ended questions. Qualitative description was used to analyze open-ended questions. The results showed that 55% of the REC representatives were not aware who was DPO in their institution. Among RECs, 65% never contacted the DPO. There were 61% of RECs who reported that they received no training from the organization on personal data protection. When asked about barriers to personal data protection in their institutions, 26% of REC members highlighted the lack of a clear protocol for assessing personal data protection issues, while 30% of DPOs mentioned lack of knowledge among researchers about personal data. In conclusion, we found that when it came to protecting personal data in research protocols, RECs and DPOs hardly ever worked together. When developing future personal data protection policies for academic and scientific research institutions, it is essential that RECs and DPOs should collaborate and both continue to expand/update their knowledge on personal data protection procedures. (shrink)

From March to September 2020, researchers working at a biomedical scientific campus in Spain faced two lockdowns and various mobility restrictions that affected their social and professional lifestyles. The working group “Women in Science,” which acts as an independent observatory of scientific gender inequalities on campus launched an online survey to assess the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on scientific activity, domestic and caregiving tasks, and psychological status. The survey revealed differences in scientific performance by gender: while male researchers participated in (...) a larger number of scientific activities for career development, female researchers performed more invisible scientific tasks, including peer review or outreach activities. Mental impact was greater in researchers caring for children or dependents, and this was aggravated for women. Results spot a disproportionate impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on female scientific career development, and urges for equity measures to mitigate the consequences of an increase in the gender gap in biomedical sciences for current and future pandemics. (shrink)

Increase or decrease in subsequent action following a low-cost act of support for a cause can be predicted from both commitment theory and the slacktivism effect. In this paper, we report on three studies that tested type of motivation as a moderator of the effect of an initial act of support [wearing a badge and writing a slogan ] has on support for blood donation. Small-scale meta-analysis performed on data from the three studies shows that activating prosocial motivation generally leads (...) to greater support for the cause after an initial act of support compared to the control condition, while the effect from impression-management motivation can either be negative or null. (shrink)

BackgroundThe European Charter of Patients' Rights (ECPR) presents basic patients' rights in health care. We analysed the characteristics of patients' complaints about their rights submitted through the official complaints system and to a non-governmental organization in Croatia.MethodsThe official system for patients’complaints in Croatia does not have a common pathway but offers different modes for addressing patient complaints. In this cross-sectional study, we analysed the reports about patients’ complaints from the official regional committees sent to the Ministry of Health. We also (...) analysed the complaints received by the Croatian Association for the Protection of Patient’s Rights (CAPR) and mapped them to the ECPR.ResultsThe aggregated official data from the Ministry of Health in 2017 and 2018 covered only 289 individual complaints from 10 out of 21 counties. Complaints were most frequently related to secondary and tertiary healthcare institutions and details were not provided. CAPR received a total of 440 letters, out of which 207 contained 301 complaints about violations of patients’ rights in 2017–2018. The most common complaint was the Right of Access to health care (35.3%) from the ECPR, followed by the Right to Information (29.9%) and the Right to Safety (21.7%). The fewest complaints were about the Right to Complain (1.9%), Right to Innovation (1.4%), Right to Compensation (1.4%), and Right to Preventive Measures (1.0%).ConclusionsReporting and dealing with patients’ complaints about violations of their patients’ rights does not appear to be effective in a system with parallel but uncoordinated complaints pathways. Mapping patient's complaints to the ECPR is a useful tool to assess the perception of patients’ rights and to plan actions to improve the complaints system for effective health care. (shrink)

Apoptotic pathways have always been regarded as a key‐player in preserving tissue and organ homeostasis. Excessive activation or resistance to activation of cell death signaling may indeed be responsible for several mechanisms of disease, including malignancy and chronic degenerative diseases. Therefore, targeting apoptotic factors gained more and more attention in the scientific community and novel strategies emerged aimed at selectively blocking or stimulating cell death signaling. This is also the case for the TMEM219 death receptor, which is activated by a (...) circulating ligand, the Insulin‐like growth factor binding protein 3 (IGFBP3) and induces a caspase‐8‐dependent apoptosis of the target cells. Interestingly, stimulation of the IGFBP3/TMEM219 axis exerts an anti‐proliferative effect, while blockade of the TMEM219 deleterious signal protects TMEM219‐expressing cells of the endocrine pancreas, lung, and intestine from damage and death. Here, we summarize the most updated reports on the role of the IGFBP3/TMEM219 apoptotic axis in disease conditions, including intestinal disorders and diabetes, and we describe the advancements in designing and testing novel TMEM219‐based targeting approaches in emerging potential clinical applications. (shrink)

Risk taking is a component of the decision-making process in situations that involve uncertainty and in which the probability of each outcome – rewards and/or negative consequences – is already known. The influence of cognitive and emotional processes in decision making may affect how risky situations are addressed. First, inaccurate assessments of situations may constitute a perceptual bias in decision making, which might influence RT. Second, there seems to be consensus that a proneness bias exists, known as risk proneness, which (...) can be defined as the propensity to be attracted to potentially risky activities. In the present study, we take the approach that risk perception and risk proneness affect RT behaviours. The study hypothesises that locus of control, emotion regulation, and executive control act as perceptual biases in RT, and that personality, sensation seeking, and impulsivity traits act as proneness biases in RT. The results suggest that locus of control, emotion regulation and executive control influence certain domains of RT, while personality influences in all domains except the recreational, and sensation seeking and impulsivity are involved in all domains of RT. The results of the study constitute a foundation upon which to build in this research area and can contribute to the increased understanding of human behaviour in risky situations. (shrink)

It is crucial for engineers to anticipate the socio-ethical impacts of emerging technologies. Such acts of anticipation are thoroughly normative and should be cultivated in engineering ethics education. In this paper we ask: ‘ how do we anticipate the socio-ethical implications of emerging technologies responsibly? ’ And ‘ how can such responsible anticipation be taught? ’ We o ff er a conceptual answer, building upon the framework of Responsible Innovation and its four core practices: anticipation, reflexivity, inclusion, and responsiveness. We (...) forge a more explicit link between the practices of anticipation, reflexivity, and inclusion, while also enriching them with insights from disability studies, STS, design theory, and philosophy. On this basis we present responsible anticipation as an activity of reflective problem framing grounded in epistemic humility. Via the RI-practice of responsiveness we present responsible anticipation as a creative approach to engineering ethics, offering engineering students a critical yet productive perspective on how ethics may inform innovation. (shrink)

Positive Youth Development (PYD) is an approach that promotes resilience and focuses on youth strengths rather than their weaknesses as done by the traditional deficit-based perspective. Research in Europe and North America show that developmental assets are associated with school success, psychological well-being, and lower health risks among youth and young adults. However, not much research has been done on these associations in Latin American contexts. The purpose of this research study is to assess the association between substance use behaviors, (...) such as drunkenness and the use of illicit drugs, and mental health, together with the mediating role of developmental assets representing youth strengths (e.g., social competence) and contextual resources (e.g., social support at home or school). Cross-national data was collected from Colombian (n= 210; 70.4% females) and Peruvian(n= 349; 66.5% females) 1st year university students. Results shed light on the protective role of developmental assets regarding substance use behaviors and mental well-being. Specifically, the results showed direct negative associations between developmental assets and substance use behaviors and positive associations of developmental assets with mental health indicators. Internal assets appear to be a stronger predictor of social, emotional, and psychological well-being compared to external assets. We did not find any statistical significance in the association of substance use behavior and mental health. We discuss implications regarding research, policy, and practice. (shrink)

Marine and coastal ecosystems are crucial in maintaining human livelihood, facilitating social development, and reducing climate change impacts. Studies have examined how the benefit perception of aquatic ecosystems, knowledge, and emotion about climate change affect peoples’ support for marine protection. However, their interaction effects remain understudied. The current study explores the intricate interaction effect of the benefit perception of aquatic ecosystems, knowledge, and worry about climate change on marine protection support. Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics (...) was employed on a dataset of 709 stakeholders from 42 countries generated by MaCoBioS—a research project funded by the European Commission Horizon 2020. The statistical analysis shows that the impacts of benefit perception of ocean ecosystems, knowledge, and worry about climate change on marine protection support vary due to their interactions. Specifically, when stakeholders perceive ocean ecosystems to have little utility in mitigating climate change, greater climate change knowledge and concern are associated with a higher level of marine protection support. Nevertheless, in the scenarios where stakeholders perceive the benefits of ocean ecosystems, the effect of climate change knowledge becomes conditional on the worry level. If stakeholders are concerned about climate change, those with a greater level of climate change knowledge will associate with a higher level of marine protection support. Otherwise, greater climate change knowledge will result in lower support. These findings highlight emotion’s importance in directing climate change knowledge’s effect on marine protection support. Linking people’s “objects of care” to the consequences of climate change can help improve climate change communication effectiveness. (shrink)

This paper reviews the AWARE™ software distributed by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). The program is designed to facilitate the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) license renewal process for US hydropower installations. The discussion reviews the regulatory, legal, and social contexts that give rise to the creation and distribution of AWARE™. The principal legal impetus for AWARE™ is the Electric Consumer Protection Act (ECPA) of 1986 that directs FERC to give equal consideration to power and non-power resources during (...) relicensing. The software is reviewed in this paper from several perspectives including those of natural resource economics, systems modeling, and the social context within which FERC licensing decisions are made. We examine both the software and its underlying methodology and find significant problems with each. Because of its flaws, AWARE™ does little to further ECPA's equal consideration requirement. We find that the conservation and restoration impact of ECPA for US fisheries could be seriously hampered by the widespread use of AWARE™. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the availability of financial bounties and anonymous reporting channels impact individuals’ general reporting intentions of questionable acts and whether the availability of financial bounties will prompt people to reveal their identities. The recent passage of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 creates a financial bounty for whistle-blowers. In addition, SOX requires companies to provide employees with an anonymous reporting channel option. It is unclear of the (...) effect of these provisions as they relate to whistle-blowing. Our results indicate that a financial bounty has the potential to increase participants’ propensity to report questionable acts and their willingness to reveal their identities when reporting, but the availability of an anonymous reporting channel does not affect participants’ propensity to report questionable acts. These findings could potentially help corporate management, government policy makers and accounting researchers to assess the effectiveness of their internal compliance programs and help determine if financial bounties in the private sector could encourage whistle-blowing. (shrink)

Ethical conflicts have always been connected with new techniques of reproductive medicine such as in-vitro fertilization. The fundamental question is: When does human life begin and from which stage of development should the embryo be protected? This question cannot be solved by scientific findings only. In prenatal ontogenesis there is no moment during the development from the fertilized oocyte to a human being which could be recognized as an orientation point for all ethical problems connected with the question of the (...) right to dispose of prenatal life (interruption of pregnancy, research on embryos). The protection of an individual human life must be valid for all in the same manner and from the very beginning on. It must not depend on value judgments or on stages of development, so-called grades of humanity, because these would then become selection criteria. Procreated life must have the right to be born. These were the essential ethical arguments which led to the German Embryo Protection Law. (shrink)

The Data Protection Act 1998 presents a number of significant challenges to data controllers in the health sector. To assist data controllers in understanding their obligations under the act, the Information Commissioner has published guidance, The Use and Disclosure of Health Data, which is reproduced here. The guidance deals, among other things, with the steps that must be taken to obtain patient data fairly, the implied requirements of the act to use anonymised or psuedonymised data where possible, an exemption (...) applicable principally to records based research, the right of patients to object to the processing of their data, and the interface of the act and the common law duty of confidence. (shrink)

Motivated by the ethical dilemma in managerial financial reporting decisions, we explore and reveal an unintended “crash” consequence following accelerated patenting information dissemination. Employing the American Inventor’s Protection Act (AIPA) that accelerated the publication of patent applications, we find that accelerated dissemination of patenting information increases stock price crash risk. This effect is stronger when treated firms are technologically closer to their rival firms and more concerned about proprietary costs. Further analyses indicate that, the heightened crash risk following the (...) AIPA is attributable to managers shifting towards less timely bad news disclosures. Overall, our study documents that accelerated dissemination of patenting information induces managers to strategically withhold negative information, which adds to the comprehension of what and how (un)ethical decisions are undertaken by managers. (shrink)

The US 1992 Torture Victims Protection Act (TVPA) strengthens the reach of the 1789 Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) to US citizens alleging claims of torture and/or extrajudicial killings that occur abroad, but only if the plaintiffs were US citizens at the time of the criminal acts. Should the later-in-time statute, which gives effect to the United Nations Convention against Torture and extends remedies under the ATCA, be amended to apply to those given political asylum in this country from (...) the moment of their entry? Is not the limbo status of victims given haven in the USA but not automatic citizenship, victims who rightly need resolution of brutal facts which occasioned rupture with their country of origin, a situation that cries for more precise remedy? This note explores this issue as raised by the case of Myroslava Gongadze, the widow of slain political journalist Georghy Gongadze in the Ukraine in September 2000. Only three of the perpetrators, policemen who say they followed orders, were put on trial in 2007–2008. Those who allegedly gave the orders for the killing continue to evade justice. (shrink)

In contrast to embryo donation, the permissibility of 2PN cell donation is highly controversial in Germany. This article is based on there being a legal loophole with respect to 2PN cell donation, which results from an inconsistency within the Embryo Protection Act on the normative status of 2PN cells. Following that thesis, the article argues that, on the basis of the normative criterion totipotency (i.e. the capacity to develop into a born human being), 2PN cells should also be considered (...) human embryos within the meaning of the Act and thereby be protected by that Act in the same way as embryos. However, the normative assumption that 2PN cells should already be endowed with human dignity and the right to life has absurd consequences. Moreover, the consistent continuation of the Embryo Protection Act, as well as of the underlying ethical position or argumentation (i.e. the potentiality argument), leads to the even more absurd consequence of having to place every human somatic cell under the protection of human dignity and the right to life. As totipotency or the developmental potential therefore cannot delimit entities considered worthy of protection (i.e. human embryos) from entities considered not worthy of protection (i.e. 2PN cells, gametes, hESC, hiPSC and human somatic cells), it is not a suitable normative criterion. As a paradigmatic case, 2PN cell donation demonstrates that by retaining this normative criterion the now obsolete German Embryo Protection (Act) ultimately undermines itself. (shrink)

Ethical conflicts have always been connected with new techniques of reproductive medicine such as in-vitro fertilization. The fundamental question is: When does human life begin and from which stage of development should the embryo be protected? This question cannot be solved by scientific findings only. In prenatal ontogenesis there is no moment during the development from the fertilized oocyte to a human being which could be recognized as an orientation point for all ethical problems connected with the question of the (...) right to dispose of prenatal life (interruption of pregnancy, research on embryos). The protection of an individual human life must be valid for all in the same manner and from the very beginning on. It must not depend on value judgments or on stages of development, so-called grades of humanity, because these would then become selection criteria. Procreated life must have the right to be born. These were the essential ethical arguments which led to the German Embryo Protection Law. (shrink)

Interleukin 5 (IL‐5) is a kind of peptide hormone released from T lymphocytes of mammals infected with microorganisms or parasites. It is an acidic glycoprotein with a molecular mass of 40 to 50 kDa that consists of a homodimer of polypeptides. It controls hematopoiesis so that it increases natural immunity. In the mouse, IL‐5 acts on committed B cells to induce differentiation into Ig‐producing cells and on common progenitors for CD5+ pre‐B cells and CD5+ macrophages to support their survival. The (...) antibodies secreted by CD5+ B cells seem to be responsible for the primary protection against the infection with microorganisms or parasites. It also supports the growth and/or differentiation of eosinophil precursor and mature eosinophils, which can be effective for the removal of parasites in combination with the antibodies against them. Murine IL‐5 receptor (IL‐5R) consists of two different polypeptide chains; αL chain and β chain. The IL‐5R α chain is 60 kDa protein that binds IL‐5 with low affinity. The IL‐5R β chain is a 130 kDa protein which does not bind IL‐5 by itself but is necessary to form the high affinity IL‐5R. The β chain was identified by using one of the anti‐IL‐5R mAb and anti‐IL‐3R mAb as the IL‐3R homologue. This β chain is also used as the β chain of GM‐CSF receptor. This fact suggests that there is a common signaling mechanism among these cytokines and efficient cooperation among them. At the same time, these findings may explain the overlapping role of these cytokines in the development of granulocytes. (shrink)

We consider a fishery model with two sites: (1) a marine protected area (MPA) where fishing is prohibited and (2) an area where the fish population is harvested. We assume that fish can migrate from MPA to fishing area at a very fast time scale and fish spatial organisation can change from small to large clusters of school at a fast time scale. The growth of the fish population and the catch are assumed to occur at a slow time (...) scale. The complete model is a system of five ordinary differential equations with three time scales. We take advantage of the time scales using aggregation of variables methods to derive a reduced model governing the total fish density and fishing effort at the slow time scale. We analyze this aggregated model and show that under some conditions, there exists an equilibrium corresponding to a sustainable fishery. Our results suggest that in small pelagic fisheries the yield is maximum for a fish population distributed among both small and large clusters of school. (shrink)

Climate change prevention necessitates the communication of transparent and reliable scientific evidence to improve public awareness and support. Felt responsibility is an essential factor influencing human environment-related psychology and behavior. However, the knowledge about the relationship between the felt responsibility and perceived uncertainty of scientific evidence regarding climate change has remained limited. The current study examines factors associated with the perceived uncertainty of scientific evidence (including felt responsibility to act on climate change) among stakeholders of marine and coastal ecosystems (...) in 42 countries. Employing the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 709 stakeholders generated by MaCoBioS—a research project funded by the European Commission Horizon 2020, we reveal several main insights. Stakeholders with lower educational levels, being males and not from high-income countries, are more likely to think scientific evidence regarding how to act on climate change is uncertain. Moreover, people with a higher felt responsibility to act on climate change are also more likely to perceive higher uncertainty of scientific evidence. Based on these findings, we discuss how scientific evidence should be communicated to build the eco-surplus culture and, subsequently, the felt responsibility of stakeholders while inoculating them from climate change misinformation and disinformation. (shrink)