Ethical conflicts are arising as a result of the growing complexity of clinical care, coupled with technological advances. Most studies that have developed instruments for measuring ethical conflict base their measures on the variables ‘frequency’ and ‘degree of conflict’. In our view, however, these variables are insufficient for explaining the root of ethical conflicts. Consequently, the present study formulates a conceptual model that also includes the variable ‘exposure to conflict’, as well as considering six ‘types of ethical conflict’. An instrument (...) was then designed to measure the ethical conflicts experienced by nurses who work with critical care patients. The paper describes the development process and validation of this instrument, the Ethical Conflict in Nursing Questionnaire Critical Care Version (ECNQ-CCV). (shrink)

After twenty-five years sustainable development is not a reality. Policies and practices focus on the short-term and economists regard sustainable development as extraneous to their core responsibilities. Science, economics and self- interest have not proven a sufficient ground for sustainable development. Ethics calling for moral reasoning and courageous action, spirit offering transcendence, vision and sustenance, and value asking what is development for are needed. United Nations negotiations have shaped, are shaping, and will continue to shape the (...) meaning and practice of sustainable development. A global citizens‘ movement to build the political will for change is needed. To catalyze sustainable development ethics, religion and spirituality must operate out of a historical context and narrative of a ―Great Transition. ‖ Ethics must enter at the ground level in determining how science, technology, and economics are to be conceived. Religion and spirit must begin with respect for the order of existence. A particular ―Ethics and Spirituality Initiative for Sustainable Development‖ is building a coalition of religious, spiritual and secular values based-organizations to bring ethics and spirituality into the sustainable development process. (shrink)

This research project investigated manifestations of critical thinking in pupils 10 to 12 years of age during their group discussions held in the context of Philosophy for Children Adapted to Mathematics. The objective of the research project was to examine, through the pupils' discussions, the development of dialogical critical thinking processes. The research was conducted during an entire school year. The research method was based on the Grounded Theory approach; the material used consisted of transcripts of verbal exchanges among (...) the pupils. Analysis of the transcripts revealed that: critical thinking appears to the extent that a 'dia-logue' is established among pupils; on the cognitive level, dialogical critical thinking is comprised of four thinking modes: logical, creative, responsible and meta-cognitive; and on the epistemological level, dialogical critical thinking is only manifested in a context where egocentricity of perspective and relativism of beliefs are transcended. (shrink)

The history of drug/vaccine development has included major advances guided primarily by risk/benefit analyses concerning the innovative agent, not by evidence-based clinical trials (Phase I–IV). Because the approval for new drugs is hindered under the present process, the system requires restructuring. The Phase I/II study period should be more flexible, using the “environment of knowledge” about the new agent, plus risk/benefit assessments. Phase III, as presently constructed, does not add new adverse events data, it provides a narrower profile (...) of drug efficacy than properly done Phase II studies, and placebo-controlled trials continue to raise unresolved ethical and social issues. Phase III studies should be abandoned for most drugs, and substituted with properly powered Phase II doseranging studies plus careful post-marketing surveillance. Phase III should be a penalty for poor drug development, not a regulatory requirement. (shrink)

Although there are fundamental differences between Ahl al-Sunnah and Shī‘a on the issue of Mahdī, one of the controversial issues among Islamic sects, Shī‘a has attached much greater importance to the issue. In this study, after the information about Mahdiship in the primary sources of Islam is conveyed, the opinions of the Ahl al-Sunnah and Shī‘a will be given and an evaluation will be made about the evidence and opinions put forward by the two sects. The Shiites, who formed the (...) principles of belief based on the theory of imamate, explained the issue of Mahdism in the axis of imamate and gave it a religious dimension, but the Shi‘ī sects disagreed on the subject of Mahdī. Shi‘ī sources tried to show that the claim of Mahdiship is an important issue, which has preoccupied Muslims, by dating the claim of Mahdiship back to Ali ibn Abi Talib's son, Muhammad ibn Hanafiyah. In a very early period, it was claimed that Muhammad ibn Hanafiyya did not die but was still living on a mountain called Razva in Madinah, and he was the anticipated (muntaẓar) Mahdī. Most of the Zaydiyya did not consider the issue of Mahdiship an important fundamental basis of belief. Ismailiyya maintain that Muhammad ibn Ismail did not die and will come and amend the world one day. Imāmiyya believe that Hasan, whom they accept as the last imam, will reappear as the Mahdī in the latest days of the world, and in line with this belief, they have made great efforts to find proof from the Qur’ānic verses and hadiths and interpreted them. In this way, they attached more importance to the understanding of Mahdiship on the axis of imamate than the other Shi‘ī sects. According to Imāmiyya, since the world cannot be left without a prophet, an open, or a secret imam, Muhammad b. Hasan will remain hidden as long as he wants and appear as the Mahdī near the Doomsday. Based on the clear statement of the Messenger of Allah (pbuh) that twelve caliphs would come after him, the Imāmiyya restricted the number of Imams from Ahl al-Bayt to twelve and claimed that the twelfth imam would come again as Mahdī. Although the Imāmiyya believe that the Mahdī will be from the Ahl al-Bayt, just like the other imams, they have not been able to provide valid evidence for the belief that the twelfth imam will be hidden and appear near Judgment Day. Although Imāmiya tried/have been trying to prove that it is possible for a person to live for centuries (more than a thousand years), which is called al-Ghaybat al-Kubrā by Imamiyya, it cannot be said that they have succeeded in doing so. (shrink)

Software systems play an ever more important role in our lives and software engineers and their companies find themselves in a position where they are held responsible for ethical issues that may arise. In this paper, we try to disentangle ethical considerations that can be performed at the level of the software engineer from those that belong in the wider domain of business ethics. The handling of ethical problems that fall into the responsibility of the engineer has traditionally been addressed (...) by the publication of Codes of Ethics and Conduct. We argue that these Codes are barely able to provide normative orientation in software development. The main contribution of this paper is, thus, to analyze the normative features of Codes of Ethics in software engineering and to explicate how their value-based approach might prevent their usefulness from a normative perspective. Codes of Conduct cannot replace ethical deliberation because they do not and cannot offer guidance because of their underdetermined nature. This lack of orientation, we argue, triggers reactive behavior such as “cherry-picking,” “risk of indifference,” “ex-post orientation,” and the “desire to rely on gut feeling.” In the light of this, we propose to implement ethical deliberation within software development teams as a way out. (shrink)

Cover Photograph: Resolving developmental genetics in the fourth dimension: an illustration (by Kwang‐Hyun Cho himself) of the principle of dynamic network motifs in Drosophila development. Hitherto largely considered in terms of time‐invariant networks, drosophila development is viewed in the article by Man‐Sun Kim, Jeong‐Rae Kim, and Kwang‐Hyun Cho as the result of networks of gene interactions that change during the course of development. Using this paradigm, pivotal developmental events can be correlated with particular changes from one constellation (...) of gene interactions to a different one, and the method allows the identification of certain network motifs that are not identifiable using static approaches. Features article: “Dynamic network rewiring determines temporal regulatory functions in the Drosophila melanogaster development processes”, see pages 505 – 513. (shrink)

The concept of Ahl as-Sunnah, which is used to describe the vast majority of Muslims, has been interpreted in different ways by different Islamic segments. The difference in the meanings attributed to the word "sunnah" in the concept composition can be seen as the reason for this diversity. This concept, which points to an important situation such as the distinction between right and wrong, has been adopted by Islamic groups and can be used from time to time to exclude those (...) who think differently from themselves. Prof. Dr. Muammer Esen, in his work titled "The Formation and Development Process of the Concept of Ahl as-Sunnah", criticized this exclusionary meaning of the concept, along with he included how this concept emerged in the historical process. The work that we will examine in this article has an important place in terms of shedding light on the historical background and different definitions of the concept of Ahl as-Sunnah. (shrink)

Thinking about abnormalization, the author views abnormalizing as one of the means of entering the space where everything is born, and evaluates the place of this means in modern society. Over the course of human history, society established norms and taboos of all kinds, and the system of norms and taboosdetermined the society itself. This is especially important in modern society, the society where, besides self-reproduction, development is also one of the main objectives, which presupposes constant creation of new (...) norms. How are norms created? What are the requirements for this? What kind of people can create new norms? What are the threats of this process? The author answers these questions and many others in the outlines of thought. While dwelling upon abnormalization, the author involuntarily touched the borders, the limits of the human world, took a look beyond the horizon of something totally different. (shrink)

The debate about the differing philosophies of human-nature relationship is ongoing. Several studies discuss the need to develop and adopt a new environmental paradigm to replace the neoclassical economic paradigm predominant in Western societies. This issue has been discussed mainly at a societal level. Society or societies are, however, entities that consist of smaller particles. If a phenomenon is supposed to exist in an entity, signs of the phenomenon should also be found in its particles, business enterprises among others. This (...) paper examines a shift of a managerial paradigm in a business organization, since not only the actions of individuals and governments but also those of business enterprises account for the preservation of the natural environment. It studies empirically how a managerial paradigm can shift from “traditional managerial thinking” to ”environment-related management.” Two frameworks will be developed for this purpose. (shrink)

The authors of this article are previous or current members of the Clinical Ethics Consultation Affairs (CECA) Committee, a standing committee of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH). The committee is composed of seasoned healthcare ethics consultants (HCECs), and it is charged with developing and disseminating education materials for HCECs and ethics committees. The purpose of this article is to describe the educational research and development processes behind our teaching materials, which culminated in a case studies book (...) called A Case-Based Study Guide for Addressing Patient-Centered Ethical Issues in Health Care (hereafter, the Study Guide). In this article, we also enumerate how the Study Guide could be used in teaching and learning, and we identify areas that are ripe for future work. (shrink)

Lyme disease is one of the most controversial illnesses in the history of medicine. In 2006 the Connecticut Attorney General launched an antitrust investigation into the Lyme guidelines development process of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA). In a recent settlement with IDSA, the Attorney General noted important commercial conflicts of interest and suppression of scientific evidence that had tainted the guidelines process. This paper explores two broad ethical themes that influenced the IDSA investigation. The first (...) is the growing problem of conflicts of interest among guidelines developers, and the second is the increasing centralisation of medical decisions by insurance companies, which use treatment guidelines as a means of controlling the practices of individual doctors and denying treatment for patients. The implications of the first-ever antitrust investigation of medical guidelines and the proposed model to remediate the tainted IDSA guidelines process are also discussed. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence systems have been widely applied to various contexts, including high-stake decision processes in healthcare, banking, and judicial systems. Some developed AI models fail to offer a fair output for specific minority groups, sparking comprehensive discussions about AI fairness. We argue that the development of AI systems is marked by a central paradox: the less participation one stakeholder has within the AI system’s life cycle, the more influence they have over the way the system will function. This means (...) that the impact on the fairness of the system is in the hands of those who are less impacted by it. However, most of the existing works ignore how different aspects of AI fairness are dynamically and adaptively affected by different stages of AI system development. To this end, we present a use case to discuss fairness in the development of corporate wellness programs using smart wearables and AI algorithms to analyze data. The four key stakeholders throughout this type of AI system development process are presented. These stakeholders are called service designer, algorithm designer, system deployer, and end-user. We identify three core aspects of AI fairness, namely, contextual fairness, model fairness, and device fairness. We propose a relative contribution of the four stakeholders to the three aspects of fairness. Furthermore, we propose the boundaries and interactions between the four roles, from which we make our conclusion about the possible unfairness in such an AI developing process. (shrink)

As organization development (OD) increasingly is being viewed globally as the major approach to organization change, a parallel interest in and need for attention to ethical issues has emerged in the field. In spite of the importance of ethical issues in OD, little attention has been focused on the ethical dilemmas that arise in OD practice, especially specific ethical dilemmas that may appear at each stage of the process. In addition, there is little discussion in the literature about (...) how to deal effectively with ethical dilemmas in OD and how to make an ethical decision by utilizing appropriate tools. Thus, in this paper, potential ethical dilemmas that may occur in each stage of the OD process are identified and presented. Recommendations and implications are discussed. (shrink)

The author, using a systematic approach, forms a picture of the process of historical development as the process of formation of the system "man and nature", the interaction of which is mediated by the system "public consciousness — public practice". The cycle of formation of the system "man and nature" goes through four stages: from unity with the nature of primitive man through the stages of contradictions: from dependence on nature and domination over it to conscious unity (...) with nature. The onset of each stage of this process is associated with the achievement of a new quality of the individual's system, with the dominance of the picture of the unity of the world in the public consciousness, with the strengthening of the interaction of subjective and objective. The completion of the formation of the system "man and nature" and the transition to the stage of unity is associated with the formation and dissemination of the worldview of unity — a systemic worldview. In this picture of the developing world, as the basis of a systemic worldview, the logic of the development of the individual's system, social consciousness and social practice has a non-linear character of the formation of opposite hierarchies with the subsequent transition to dialectical unity in full accordance with the dialectical logic identified by G.W.F. Hegel: thesis — antithesis — synthesis. This is exactly how the development of Russian society takes place, in which the new quality of the individual's system is associated with the development of social consciousness: idealism — materialism — a systemic worldview, and social practice: capitalism — socialism — a social state with a market economy. (shrink)

This study investigates how Human Factors is applied when designing and developing Immersive Visual Technologies, including Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, and Virtual Reality. We interviewed fourteen people working at different organizations, that develop IVT applications in the Nordic region. We used thematic analysis to derive themes from the interviews. The results showed an insufficient knowledge and application of HF in IVT development, due to the lack of awareness of both scope and significance of HF, resource allocation strategy, market inertia, (...) stakeholder's involvement, standardization of HF application and IVT uses, and technology maturity. This situation could be improved by allocating experts, adjusting organizational strategy to balance resource allocation, training developers and user organizations to raise awareness and to encourage co-creative design and knowledge sharing, create a sense of ownership amongst stakeholders, and ensure the usefulness of the technology to the user's work. (shrink)

This article addresses the new theories and concepts of design management: design thinking, user experience (UX) and service design. They consider people's experiences and focus on the characteristics of each one of them. From industrial design, the scope and relationships between these definitions - now better visible - were analyzed, which always belonged to the design field of the discipline, from which an attempt was made to identify how they influence innovation, design and development of new products. To account (...) for the evolution that the design field has had, the most significant processes are contrasted to visualize the differences that make this change fundamental. Finally, it is concluded on its strategic relevance for the application in public and private organizations. Also taking into account how these theories are methodologically incorporated into the set of activities inherent to industrial design. (shrink)

The study examined the development of Chinese as a second language learners’ formulaic knowledge through comparing the processing of Chinese idioms versus non-idiomatic formulaic sequences (FSs) by advanced-level learners (ALs), super-advanced learners (SLs), and native speakers (NSs). Using two phrase acceptability judgment tasks with and without think-aloud protocols, we collected data on participants’ processing accuracy, processing speed, and processing strategies of reading the two types of FSs. Four processing patterns emerged from the analyses of the datasets. First, learners’ processing (...) accuracy and speed increased along with their proficiency. Second, learners’ idiom processing ability was generally lower than that of non-idiom processing ability, but they demonstrated an improving trend as their proficiency level increased. Third, learners’ use of processing strategies did not change much as proficiency rose and demonstrated a categorical difference from NSs. Fourth, all three groups exhibited poorer productive idiom knowledge than productive non-idiom knowledge. The overall findings denote that second language learners’ formulaic knowledge can evolve beyond the lexical plateau as learners move from the advanced to a higher proficiency level, but the productive idiom knowledge can be a long-term problem. The findings provide implications for measuring and teaching Chinese formulaic knowledge at the higher-than-advanced stage. (shrink)

When corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a sensemaking process is assessed from a corporate governance perspective, this implies that stakeholders do not only influence companies by promoting and enforcing regulations and other corporate guidelines. They also influence companies by promoting regulation on influence pathways, by demanding that companies develop formal mechanisms that allow companies and stakeholders to discuss and in some cases agree on changes to principles and policies. This perspective suggests that regulation is an outcome of power relations (...) and is, as such, a reflection of certain mental models. As such, mental models reveal the political bias in corporate governance perspectives. For this reason, CSR research needs to be clear about the underlying assumptions about corporate governance, and corporate governance research needs to disclose which mental models of CSR influence the outcomes. Taking a governance perspective on the development of mental models of CSR helps to understand the interaction between CSR and processes of sensemaking at the institutional, organizational and individual levels. (shrink)

What purpose is served by renovation or redesign of professionalism, and how successful a process is it likely to be? This article addresses these questions by examining the effectiveness as a professional development mechanism of the imposition of changes to policy and/or practice that require modification or renovation of professionalism. The 'new' professionalisms purported to have been fashioned over the last two or three decades across the spectrum of UK education sectors and contexts have been the subject of (...) extensive analysis, and this article avoids going over old ground and revisiting issues that have already been much debated. Nevertheless, the example of UK government education policy during this period is used as a basis for considering the pitfalls associated with mechanisms for modifying professionalism through a reform and standards agenda. The article's analysis incorporates redefinition and examination of the concept and substance of professionalism and offers new perspectives in the form of three distinct conceptions: demanded, prescribed and enacted professionalism. Exploring the existentialist status of 'new' or 'modified' professionalisms and the relationship between professionality, professional culture and professionalism, it examines how professionalism may be interpreted and utilised for the development of education professionals. (shrink)

With the rising popularity of mindfulness practice, it is necessary and crucial to evaluate mindfulness using comprehensive and objective measures. The instruments to assess mindfulness in China mainly evaluate mindfulness as a state or trait mode. Few process measures have been developed to clarify effective therapy benefits of the alterations obtained using mindfulness practice. Therefore, this study aims to adapt the Applied Mindfulness Process Scale into Mandarin and explore in detail the reliability and validity of this novel-translated measure. (...) Following cross-cultural modification for original AMPS into Mandarin as per established guidelines, psychometric evaluation was performed on a cohort of 234 Chinese adults. Construct validity was analyzed through exploratory factor analysis, together with confirmatory factor analysis. Reliability was assessed by internal consistency together with test-retest reliability. Findings indicated that the internal consistency was high, with Cronbach’s alpha being 0.936. The principal component analysis led to a three-factor structure that explained 67.374% of all variations. The three-factor model was consistent with the original scale model. Based upon confirmatory factor analyses, all fitting indices satisfied the standard, which showed a close fit to the data. Therefore, the newly multi-culturally modified AMPS has sufficient validity, test-retest reliability, together with internal consistency. Chinese AMPS may offer researchers and clinicians a psychometrically optimized tool for evaluating the application of mindfulness and change process within mindfulness-based interventions in Mainland China. (shrink)

General Process Theory (GPT) is a new (non-Whiteheadian) process ontology. According to GPT the domains of scientific inquiry and everyday practice consist of configurations of ‘goings-on’ or ‘dynamics’ that can be technically defined as concrete, dynamic, non-particular individuals called general processes. The paper offers a brief introduction to GPT in order to provide ontological foundations for research programs such as interactivism that centrally rely on the notions of ‘process,’ ‘interaction,’ and ‘emergence.’ I begin with an analysis of (...) our common sense concept of activities, which plays a crucial heuristic role in the development of the notion of a general process. General processes are not individuated in terms of their location but in terms of ‘what they do,’ i.e., in terms of their dynamic relationships in the basic sense of one process being part of another. The formal framework of GPT is thus an extensional mereology, albeit a non-classical theory with a non-transitive part-relation. After a brief sketch of basic notions and strategies of the GPT-framework I show how the latter may be applied to distinguish between causal, mechanistic, functional, self-maintaining, and recursively self-maintaining interactions, all of which involve ‘emergent phenomena’ in various senses of the term. (shrink)

Biolinguistic inquiry investigates the human language faculty as an internal biological property. This article traces the development of biolinguistics from its early philosophical origins through its reformulation during the cognitive revolution of the 1950s and outlines my views on where the biolinguistic enterprise stands today. The growth of language in the individual, it is suggested, depends on (i) genetic factors, (ii) experience, and (iii) principles that are not specific to the faculty of language. The best current explanation of how (...) language is recursively generated is through Merge, an operation that takes objects already constructed, and reconstructs a new object from them, generating a 'language of thought', perhaps in a manner close to optimal (relying on principles of category (iii)), with externalization (hence communication) a secondary process. The concluding section of the article offers several objectives for future research in the field. (shrink)

Cross-sector development partnerships are project-based collaborative arrangements between business, government, and civil society organizations in support of international development goals such as sustainability, health education, and economic development. Focusing on public private partnerships in development cooperation, we examine different constellations of bridging agents and their effects in the formation of single CSDP projects and longer-term alliances. We conceptualize bridging agency as a collective process involving both internal partner representatives and external intermediaries in initiating and/or supporting (...) roles. We find that the involvement of external intermediaries eases the formation of single projects and longer-term alliances. However, when projects are initiated by external intermediaries they tend to be repetitive and narrow in scope, whereas projects initiated by internal partner representatives often explore novel agendas and embody a greater potential for social innovation. Yet, the longer-term pursuit of these agendas beyond single projects may require external intermediaries in supporting roles. Findings help better understand micro-processes and collective practices of brokerage and alliance formation in transnational governance contexts and beyond. (shrink)

This paper addresses the concept of semiotic scaffolding by considering it in light of questions arising from the contemporary challenge to the humanities. This challenge comes from a mixture of scientistic demands, opportunism on the part of Western governments in thrall to neo-liberalism, along with crass economic utilitarianism. In this paper we attempt to outline what a theory of semiotic scaffolding may offer to an understanding of the humanities’ contemporary role, as well as what the humanities might offer to the (...) elucidation of semiotic scaffolding. We argue that traditional humanist positions adopted in defence of the humanities fail to articulate the enhancement of humanity that semiotic scaffolding represents. At the same time, we note that the concept of scaffolding is sometimes in danger of taking on a functionalist perspective which understanding the humanities modus operandi is likely to dispel. Putting forward these arguments, we draw on the work of Peirce, Cassirer and Sebeok in elucidating the structural and ‘future-orientated’ benefits of the scaffolding process as it suffuses the humanities. (shrink)

El artículo constituye un acercamiento a las razones que sustentan la necesidad de elevar la calidad de la orientación a las familias de niños en la primera infancia y su objetivo consistió en capacitar al personal de la salud para desarrollar la orientación familiar en función de la prevención de desviaciones en el desarrollo en esta etapa. En él se aborda el rol que tiene la familia en la formación de los niños y la incidencia de los médicos y enfermeras (...) en su orientación; se encuentran reflexiones y comentarios sobre cómo elevar la calidad de la orientación para que la familia pueda desarrollar, en las condiciones de convivencia familiar, la prevención de desviaciones en el desarrollo mediante la realización de un proceso educativo de calidad. The article is an approach to the reasons that support the need to improve the quality of the guidance given to families of early childhood children and its objective consisted on training health staff to develop family guidance according to the prevention of deviations in development during this stage. It deals with the role family plays in children's education and the impact of doctors and nurses on its guidance. Thoughts and comments on how to improve the quality of guidance can also be found so that the family can develop, on family living conditions, the prevention of deviations in development through a quality educational process. (shrink)

Safety-critical systems manufacturers have the duty of care, i.e., they should take correct steps while performing acts that could foreseeably harm others. Commonly, industry standards prescribe reasonable steps in their process requirements, which regulatory bodies trust. Manufacturers perform careful documentation of compliance with each requirement to show that they act under acceptable criteria. To facilitate this task, a safety-centered planning-time framework, called ACCEPT, has been proposed. Based on compliance-by-design, ACCEPT capabilities permit to design Compliance-aware Engineering Process Plans, which (...) are able to show the planning-time allocation of standard demands, i.e., if the elements set down by the standard requirements are present at given points in the engineering process plan. In this paper, we perform a case study to understand if the ACCEPT produced models could support the planning of space software engineering processes. Space software is safety and mission-critical, and it is often the result of industrial cooperation. Such cooperation is coordinated through compliance with relevant standards. In the European context, ECSS-E-ST-40C is the de-facto standard for space software production. The planning of processes in compliance with project-specific ECSS-E-ST-40C applicable requirements is mandatory during contractual agreements. Our analysis is based on qualitative criteria targeting the effort dictated by task demands required to create a CaEPP for software development with ACCEPT. Initial observations show that the effort required to model compliance and processes artifacts is significant. However, such an effort pays off in the long term since models are, to some extend, reusable and flexible. The coverage level of the models is also analyzed based on design decisions. In our opinion, such a level is adequate since it responds to the information needs required by the ECSS-E-ST-40C framework. (shrink)

The primary objective was to review pediatric ethics consultations at a large academic health center over a nine year period, assessing demographics, ethical issues, and consultant intervention. The secondary objective was to describe the evolution of PECs at our institution. This was a retrospective review of Consultation Summary Sheets compiled for PECs at our Academic Health Center between January 2008 and April 2017. There were 165 PECs reviewed during the study period. Most consult requests came from the inpatient setting, with (...) the Pediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care Units being the highest utilizers. Consultation utilization increased over the study period. The most common patient age was less than one year. Physicians were most likely to request consultation. Patient Best Interest, Withholding/Withdrawing of Life Sustaining Therapy, and Provider Moral Distress were ethical issues most commonly identified by the consultants. Making recommendations was the most common consultant intervention. The ethics consultation process evolved over time from informal provider discussions, to a hospital infant care review committee, to a pediatric only consultation service, to a combined adult/pediatric consultation service, with variable levels of salary support for consultants. Ethics consultation requests are growing at our institution. Similarities in identified ethical issues exist between our findings and existing literature, however meaningful comparisons remains elusive secondary to variability in approaches to investigation and reporting. A combined paid/volunteer/trainee ethics consultation service model appears sustainable and real time ethics consultation is feasible using this approach. (shrink)

Abstract:Moral imagination is a reasoning process thought to counter the organizational factors that corrupt ethical judgment. We describe the psychology of moral imagination as composed of the four decision processes identified by Rest (1986), i.e., moral sensitivity, moral judgment, moral intention, and moral behavior. We examine each process in depth, distilling extant psychological research and indicating organizational implications. The conclusion offers suggestions for future research.The majority of men are subjective toward themselves and objective toward all others—terribly objective sometimes—but (...) the real task is in fact to be objective toward one’s self and subjective toward all others. (shrink)

Source: Author: Natalia Kabus The article shows the relevance of activity-based approach usage as methodological basis of prospective social workers’ training to sustainable development of social groups. It is proved that future experts’ training in this direction is important both for Ukraine and other countries. There have been revealed the types of activities, which provide the development of personality and social groups’ subjectivity, their formation as the subjects of life and responsible social subjects that is essentail condition and (...) indicator of their sustainable development. It has been emphasized that activity-based approach is the basis for the development of the technology of prospective social workers’ training to sustainable development of social groups, which provides organization and management of this process as well as ensures gradual moving of prospective social workers to the level of self-management. There also has been substantiated necessity of the subjective and action approach usage which implementation ensures the development of subjective readiness of various social groups’ representatives to individual and joint socially valuable actions that is essentail indicator of their sustainable development. ]]>. (shrink)

The central place accorded the notion of ‘sustainable development' among those attempting to overcome ecological problems could be one of the main reasons for their failure. ‘Ecological civilization' is proposed and defended as an alternative. ‘Ecological civilization' has behind it a significant proportion of the leadership of China who would be empowered if this notion were taken up in the West. It carries with it the potential to fundamentally rethink the basic goals of life and to provide an alternative (...) image of the future. It could both inspire people and provide the cultural foundations for the cultural, social and economic transformations necessary to create a new world order, a world order in which humans augment rather than undermine the ecosystems of which they are part. This paper explicates these implications. (shrink)

This book disentangles the complex meanings of responsibility in nanotechnology development by focusing on its theoretical and empirical dimensions. The notion of responsibility is extremely diversified in the public discourse of nanoscale technologies. Addressed are major disciplinary perspectives working on nanotechnology, e.g. philosophy, sociology, and political science, as well as the major multidisciplinary areas relevant to the innovation process, e.g. technology assessment and ethics. Furthermore, the interplay between such expertises, disciplines, and research programmes in providing a multidisciplinary understanding (...) of responsibility is emphasized. (shrink)

This is a commentary for a special issue on predictive processing and rational constructivist models of development. Mainly I use the opportunity to ask a bunch of questions about what these theoretical frameworks show us (and what they do not) and mostly where the open questions still are. To get meta for a moment, I thought these questions were the best way to maximize the value of my commentary: They have the highest probability of leading to the most uncertainty (...) reduction for our field in the long term. Please read in that spirit. (shrink)