Training programme on “Research Methodology” -/- Planning, Monitoring & Research Division of DGHS with technical support of Bangladesh Bioethics Society (BBS) and American University of Sovereign Nation (AUSN, USA) organized a three days Training programme on “Research Methodology” on 3-5 December, 2017 at Conference Room, DGHS (1st floor, Old Building). -/- Graduation Ceremony: Following Members of BBS have been graduated from AUSN, USA in 2017 and honored by BBS through a programme. -/- PhD (Bioethics, Sustainability and Global Public Health) Prof (...) Shamima Parvin Lasker, Professor & Head of Anatomy, MH Samorita Medical College, Dhaka – She is the 2nd PhD holder and 1st Female PhD from AUSN. -/- Master of Bioethics and Global Public Health Dr Tonmoy Biswas Tanya Ahmed Tamjida Ahmed . (shrink)

We identify the ways the policies of leading international bioethics journals limit the participation of researchers working in the resource-constrained settings of low- and middle-income countries in the development of the field of bioethics. Lack of access to essential scholarly resources makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for many LMIC bioethicists to learn from, meaningfully engage in, and further contribute to the global bioethics discourse. Underrepresentation of LMIC perspectives in leading journals sustains the hegemony of Western bioethics, limits the (...) presentation of diverse moral visions of life, health, and medicine, and undermines aspirations to create a truly “global” bioethics. Limited attention to this problem indicates a lack of empathy and moral imagination on the part of bioethicists in high-income countries, raises questions about the ethics of bioethics, and highlights the urgent need to find ways to remedy this social injustice. (shrink)

Modern bioethics was born in the West and thus reflects, not surprisingly, the traditions of Western moral philosophy and political and social theory. When the work of bioethics was confined to the West, this background of socio-political theory and moral tradition posed few problems, but as bioethics has moved into other cultures – inside and outside of the Western world – it has become an agent of moral imperialism. We describe the moral imperialism of bioethics, discuss its dangers, and suggest (...) that global bioethics will succeed only to the extent that it is local. (shrink)

Due to the nature of lending practices and support services offered to the poor in developing countries, portfolio risk is a growing concern for the microfinance industry. Though previous research highlights the importance of risk for microfinance organizations, not much is known about how microfinance organizations can mitigate risks incurred from providing loans to the poor in developing countries. Further, though many microfinance organizations practice corporate social responsibility to help create economic and social wealth in developing countries, the impact of (...) such CSR practices remains an underdeveloped area of inquiry. We use a normative ethics lens to develop an ethics-based CSR theory that differentiates between three forms of ethics-based CSR—virtue, consequentialist, and deontological. We argue that while all three forms can help mitigate risk, virtue ethics-based CSR is potentially the most useful form of CSR toward mitigating microfinance portfolio risk. We test our hypotheses using a sample of microfinance organizations from across the world. Our findings suggest that virtue ethics-based CSR is not just an important philosophical paradigm; it can actually help mitigate microfinance portfolio risk when implemented in practice. (shrink)

The field of bioethics continues to struggle with the problem of cultural diversity: can universal principles guide ethical decision making, regardless of the culture in which those decisions take place? Or should bioethical principles be derived from the moral traditions of local cultures? Ten Have and Gordijn and Bracanovic defend the universalist position, arguing that respect for cultural diversity in matters ethical will lead to a dangerous cultural relativity where vulnerable patients and research subjects will be harmed. We challenge the (...) premises of moral universalism, showing how this approach imports and imposes moral notions of Western society and leads to harm in non-western cultures. (shrink)

The central conflicts of the world today are closely related to cultural, traditional, and religious differences between nations. As we move to a globalized world, these differences often become magnified, entrenched, and the cause of bloody conflict. Growing out of a conference of distinguished scholars from the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, this volume is a singular contribution to mutual understanding and cooperative efforts on behalf of peace. The term paideia, drawn from Greek philosophy, has to do with (...) responsible education for citizenship as a necessary precondition for effective democracy. (shrink)

Semantic relationships have an active role in textual study, as they are an essential tool through which the text is constructed, this is done through the sequence of sentences of saying, and these relationships lead to the growth and continuation of the subject of the text, and then linking speech, which in turn achieves textual harmony. The aim of this study is to highlight the importance of these relationships and to elaborate on them, this research dealt with two additional linkage (...) relationships: (equivalent additional relationship), and (different additional relationship), with a breakdown of each of them, and then the inclusion of poetic applications from the texts of the poet Hazem Rushak Al-Tamimi, showing the extent of the harmony, plot and coherence of these texts. (shrink)

Children's cognitive and imaginative development is greatly enhanced by creative projects, which establish the groundwork for critical thinking, problem-solving, and flexibility. By evaluating improvements in creativity, memory, and problem-solving abilities, this study seeks to determine how creative activities affect children’s imaginative and cognitive growth. The dataset includes performance measures from 894 children between the ages of seven and ten who participated in eight weeks of either traditional or creative learning activities. Split the data into two groups, such as Group A (...) (experimental group) and Group B (control group). A normal curriculum was followed by Group B (n=212), while Group A (n=481) participated in a variety of creative activities like music, art, and storytelling. Cognitive and imaginative assessments were administered pre- and post-intervention, covering four key indicators: fluency, originality in narrative creativity, flexibility and graphic abilities in drawing creativity. The results showed that the Group A had performed better than Group B in terms of originality. In conclusion, creative activities help children to develop specific cognitive and imaginative skills; this means that including them in curriculums is important for their overall development. (shrink)

The ozone layer, which is part of the atmosphere surrounding the globe, which intensively contains ozone gas, is one of the important and highly concentrated air layers in the bottom of the strateosphere and is a blue color, and it has an important impact in regulating a surface temperature.

Corrupt regulatory environment encourages firms to deploy middlemen for speedy and assured acquisition of different services from regulatory agencies. Using a World Bank dataset of 2210 Indian manufacturing firms, this article examines how firms with middlemen deal with corrupt governmental agencies for its operational efficiency. Our results demonstrate that deployment of middlemen by the firms is often accompanied by a substantial increase in operational delay, relatively trigger more consumption of senior management’s time on regulatory disentanglement, enhance the likelihood/tendency to pay (...) bribe, and likely to face more court cases as a means of restitution of legal rights. As firm-specific attributes may contaminate our preliminary results, we utilized the propensity score framework to examine relationships among variables of interests. Our study contributes to the inconspicuous part of the corruption literature by attempting to present a comprehensive but indirect assessment of the functions of middlemen that predominantly remained unattended except some scattered descriptive, case-based anecdotal presentations. (shrink)

In this paper, we offer a childist reading of school strikes for climate in an overheated world. We argue that school strikes can be understood as offering a dynamic counterweight to formal education, by providing opportunities for children to self-educate, and for others, especially adults, to learn from them. We suggest that taking school strikes seriously as sites of political appearance—which highlight interdependencies and vulnerabilities in the face of crises in Anthropocene neoliberalism requires rethinking the boundaries of democratic participation and (...) education. In particular, we highlight that school strikes for climate serve as an invitation for adults to let children contribute to their own ongoing formation. A childist philosophical attitude that emphasises mutual teaching—i.e. the adult capacity to see and hear what children show and say—can expand through an engagement with, rather than against school strikes. Children’s political appearance on streets to influence political priorities from an intergenerational global justice point of view is a gift for adults and adultist structures. It is a passage to grasp deep interdependence and to assume appropriate responsibility. If ‘education’ is a beacon of hope in times of overheated despair, then the hope is in educational philosophies that have room for mutual teaching. The philosophical assumption that it is adults who must always, and necessarily, teach children to prepare them for a better future would have to be discarded. (shrink)

Introduction: Pharmaceutical companies offer various gifts to physicians to encourage them to prescribe their products. This collaboration has some negative and positive aspects. Different countries have established guidelines to limit the collaboration and reform such relationships. This study aims to determine the attitude of Bangladeshi medical students towards pharmaceutical gifts, physician-pharmacist collaboration, and associated factors. Methods: An online cross-sectional and correlational study was conducted through email and Google-Forms among Bangladeshi medical students. A total of 435 students from different medical colleges (...) completed the questionnaires in May and June, 2016. Results: Monthly parental income was moderate among the majority of medical students. Less than 16% had a physician or pharmacist parent. Most of the students were taught about medical ethics, but 73% were not taught about the ethics of physician-pharmacist collaboration. About 85% did not have any experience of interaction with marketing representatives. Drug samples and pennotepads were the most appreciated pharmaceutical gifts. Jewelry and gifts costing more than 100 thousand were said to be the least appreciated pharmaceutical gifts. Attitudes towards drug companies and representatives were assessed by fifteen statements. Medical students had a variety of attitudes regarding its ethical justification. Attitudes were correlated with gender, parental income, physician parents, academic years, and having been taught about pharmaceutical collaboration with physicians. Conclusion and Recommendations: medical students should elaborate on ethical reasoning before accepting pharmaceutical gifts. Medical colleges and curriculums should teach them about the interaction. A national guideline may be needed. (shrink)

Ever since 1956 when details of the Logic Theorist were published by Newell and Simon, a large literature has accumulated on computational models and theories of the creative process, especially in science, invention and design. But what exactly do these computational models/theories tell us about the way that humans have actually conducted acts of creation in the past? What light has computation shed on our understanding of the creative process? Addressing these questions, we put forth three propositions: (I) Computational models (...) of the creative process are fundamentally flawed as theories of human creativity. Rather, the universal power of computational models lies elsewhere: (II) Computational models of particular acts of creation can serve as effective experiments to test universal hypotheses about creative processes and mechanisms; and (III) Computation-based architectures of the creative mind provide metaphorical frameworks that, like all good metaphors, can serve as rich sources of insight into aspects of the creative process. In this paper, we provide evidence for these three propositions by drawing upon some particular episodes in the cognitive history of science, technology, and art. (shrink)

On Advaita philosophy; Sanskrit text with commentary and translation.

India is a rising power in the multipolar world. This book showcases India's endogenous political ideas and strategic thinking, both of which are the key resources that underpin and drive this rise. Kautilya's Arthashastra is a major source of these ideas. It is a premodern treatise on statecraft and a foundational text of political science. So far, political science and international relations theory have largely ignored Kautilya, or, at best, labelled him merely as the 'Indian Machiavelli'. Such a characterisation vastly (...) undervalues the riches and depth of the contributions of Kautilya - a contemporary of Aristotle - whose contributions can be compared more appropriately to those of Artistotle's politics. Kautilya's contributions are recognised by such masters of western political theory as Max Weber and Hans J. Morgenthau. But in South Asia, Kautilya has remained adrift of the academic mainstream and has been given little prominence in public life, both intellectually and politically. Despite such scholarly negligence, everyday life in India - in terms of the institutions and process that constitute it - has remained deeply grounded in the political heritage of pre-modern India, succinctly codified in Kautilya's Arthashastra. These themes are explored in this book through such bridge concepts as the 'modernity of tradition' and the 're-use of the past' in tackling contemporary political problems. These concepts are the key factors that explain the resilience and stability of India's hybrid political institutions and democratic system. 'Kautilya's Arthashastra: an Intellectual portrait - Classical Roots of Modern Politics in India' is an indispensable key to understanding contemporary India and a major contribution to South Asian area studies, comparative politics and global political theory. (shrink)

The plank of the dependency theory is that unless there is a transition to socialism and a complete break with the metropolitan countries, the peripheral status of the dependent countries would continue. After the Second World War with the emergence of many new nations, as a consequence of decolonization, the question of development assumed paramount importance for these countries. Raul Prebisch (1950) understood the nineteenth century paradigm of free trade as inoperative and disadvantageous to the raw materials exporting countries. The (...) spectacular success of the Newly Industrialized countries‐ Hong Kong,Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan by integrating with the developed nations, have achieved a higher standard of living and negated the basic assumptions of the dependency theory. (shrink)

This study examines whether microfinance institutions (MFIs) that serve women borrowers at the base of the economic pyramid are likely to adopt a written code of positive organizational ethics (POE). Using econometric analysis of operational and economic data of a sample of MFIs from across the world, we find that two contextual factors—poverty level and lack of women’s empowerment—moderate the influence of an MFI’s percentage of women borrowers on the probability of the MFI having a POE code. MFIs that serve (...) more women borrowers are more likely to adopt a POE code, especially in negative contexts (where women borrowers face poverty and disempowerment and are therefore susceptible to abuse). This study provides evidence that MFIs can build positive ethical strength in negative contexts. (shrink)

This study examines the influence of women’s board representation on the proportion of women senior managers in the United Kingdom (UK) from 1999 to 2019. We take a multi-theoretic approach, drawing on the trickle-down effect, critical mass theory, and agency theory, to explore several aspects of this topic. We find that more women on boards is associated with more women in senior management as suggested by the trickle-down perspective. We also find support for a critical mass effect; while one or (...) two women on a board is beneficial for advancing women into senior management, three or more women directors is more advantageous. Consistent with agency theory expectations, the relationship between women on boards and senior management gender diversity is driven almost entirely by women in non-executive, rather than executive, board positions, presumably as a result of the relative independence non-executive directors have compared to their executive director counterparts. Our study suggests that increasing women’s board appointments is a potential solution to the underrepresentation of women senior managers and may assist in building a pipeline for future CEO and board appointments. (shrink)

This study suggests that unrelated diversification has a positive influence on the probability of fraudulent reporting whereas related diversification has a negative influence on the probability of fraudulent reporting. The strength of the influence of these corporate level strategies is contingent on the moral character of the firm. Unrelated diversification provides opportunity for financial innovation within the firm’s internal capital market, which can result in fraudulent reporting. This is more likely when the moral character of the firm is driven by (...) a conscienceless financial self-interest motive, as implied by the firm’s contempt toward the larger community (in terms of damage inflicted on the interests of people outside the firm). In contrast, related diversification, where product divisions focus on mutual sharing and monitoring of operational activities, can reduce the probability of fraudulent reporting. This is more likely when constituents within the firm view themselves as moral citizens, as implied by the firm’s benevolence toward the larger community. Hence, while unrelated diversification focuses the energies of managers within the firm on financial manipulation, related diversification focuses these energies on productive purposes. (shrink)

Genotoxic stress, arising from various environmental sources and endogenous cellular processes, pose a constant threat to genomic stability. Cells have evolved intricate mechanisms to detect and repair DNA damage, orchestrating a robust genotoxic stress response to safeguard the integrity of the genome. Recent research has shed light on the crucial role of co‐ and post‐transcriptional regulatory mechanisms in modulating the cellular response to genotoxic stress. Here we highlight recent advances illustrating the intricate interplay between pre‐mRNA processing, with a focus on (...) 3′‐end processing, and genotoxic stress response. (shrink)

This study reviewed and analysed the phenomenon of employer branding. We began with a review of recent research in employer branding. Next, drawing the theoretical knowledge from OB, HRM, and marketing, a framework is developed depicting the antecedents of employer branding and its impact on the company performance. For this, primary data were collected administering a questionnaire survey on 347 top-level executives in 209 companies in India, and secondary data were collected on financial performance. The results revealed that realistic job (...) previews, perceived organizational support, equity in reward administration, perceived organizational prestige, organizational trust, leadership of top management, psychological contract obligations, and corporate social responsibility influence employer branding, which in turn impact non-financial and financial performance of companies. Furthermore, leadership of top management is the most potent predictor of employer branding. Greater deviation of the existing state from the ideal state of antecedents adversely affects employer branding. Management can use this framework for developing strategy towards implementation of employer branding. (shrink)

Who are the gatekeepers in bioethics? Does editorial bias or institutional racism exist in leading bioethics journals? We analyzed the composition of the editorial boards of 14 leading bioethics journals by country. Categorizing these countries according to their Human Development Index (HDI), we discovered that approximately 95 percent of editorial board members are based in (very) high-HDI countries, less than 4 percent are from medium-HDI countries, and fewer than 1.5 percent are from low-HDI countries. Eight out of 14 leading bioethics (...) journals have no editorial board members from a medium- or low-HDI country. Eleven bioethics journals have no board members from low-HDI countries. This severe underrepresentation of bioethics scholars from developing countries on editorial boards suggests that bioethics may be affected by institutional racism, raising significant questions about the ethics of bioethics in a global context. (shrink)

How do bioethics gatekeepers located in wealthy nations treat bioethics workers from developing countries? Can the policies of leading international bioethics journals—based on a concern for profit that effectively restricts access for most researchers from developing countries—be ethically justified? We examined these policies focusing on the way they influence the ability of researchers in resource-poor countries to participate in the development of the field of bioethics. Eight of the fourteen leading bioethics journals are published by three transnational publishing houses, all (...) of which are based in wealthy nations. None of these eight journals participates in the Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative of the World Health Organization, a program that provides free or very low-cost online access to the major journals by researchers in developing countries. Lack of access to these essential resources makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for bioethicists in developing countries to learn from, and engage in, the global bioethics dialogue. Thus, exclusionary practices of leading bioethics journals sustain the hegemony of Western bioethics, raising serious questions about professed aspirations to create a truly “global” bioethics. This phenomenon indicates lack of empathy and moral imagination of bioethicists in developed countries, raises serious questions about the ethics of bioethics, and highlights the urgent need for creative solutions to remedy this social injustice. (shrink)

In the twentieth century, no person epitomized more dramatically the “Renaissance mind” than Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001). In aworking life spanning over 60 years, Simon made seminal contributions to administrative theory, axiomatic foundations of physics, economics, sociology, econometrics, cognitive psychology, logic of scientific discovery, and artificial intelligence. Simon's life of the mind, thus, affords nothing less than a “laboratory” in which to observe and examine at close quarters the phenomenon ofmultidisciplinary creativity. In this paper, we attempt to shed some light (...) on the nature of Simon's creativity and the nature of his particular Renaissance mind. In particular, we have attempted here to articulate thecognitive styleunderlying Simon's multidisciplinary creativity. (shrink)

"Bioethics A Very Short Introduction" for UG level or beginners.

This essay attempts to outline a philosophical anthropology with dialogicality as its key concept. It argues that it is impossible to explicate this concept with any bias toward the ontological primacy of either the subject or the knowable object. The essay develops from the philosophy of Martin Buber who vindicated the need for subject-object binarism to be superseded by a relational ontology of human existence, that is, a space between the dialoguing I and Thou. From this point of view, different (...) sectors of human studies – including those involving politics or socio-political crafting of human states of affairs – must be approached according to their unique dimension. The essay’s envisioning of knowledge of humans by human being beyond any subject-object dichotomy implies a new perspective of self-other relationship whereby the phenomenological notion of intentionality is apprehended in its dialogical mode. (shrink)

Customarily, reflections on the need to educate sensory and bodily enactments with the world, take for granted that it is the child who must be educated. However, the educational passage of becoming 'rational' and 'grown up' often leaves the adult divorced from her own embodied self. As part of my engagement with childism in this article, I ask: Who needs sensory education? In response, I propose that it is adults who need sensory education more than their temporal others Reimagining childhood (...) studies, Bloomsbury Academic, London, pp 57–74 2018) i.e. children. As Merleau-Ponty has shown, the richness of embodied perception that children experience, is relatively distant for adults. The particular lived-experience I reflect on is the sense of temporality. Accompanied by two distinct, yet interconnected examples of encounters with Baby Ole and Captain Duke, I suggest that being-with-children can enable philosophical clearings for adults to re-cognise plural temporalities, as opposed to a singular clock-time perception of Time. (shrink)

The Original Work Presents A Totally New Methodology For Understanding The Concept Of Aesthetic Experience Through The Medium Of Dialogue A Dialogue Between The Subject And Object, I And Thou.

The welfare state, once seen as the best institutional response to people in need, has steadily come under pressure, as much from shrinking state capacities as from neo-liberal advocates of individual responsibility. Still, despite decline of the post-war consensus on the efficacy of the welfare state, social ‘vulnerability’ still remains the key focus of public policy. However, though much in use in contemporary political discourse, the logical and practical implications of social vulnerability remain unclear. Its essential subjectivity – it is (...) the ‘feeling of vulnerability’ which makes one vulnerable – turns the concept into a catch-all variable, impeding rigorous theoretical and empirical analysis. I respond to this problem with a ‘vulnerability-responsibility’, model. Its parameters include a ‘responsive’ state, an active civil society and a participatory political environment, bolstered by the assertion of agency of the vulnerable. With India as an empirical exemplar, the essay shows how ‘nested’ vulnerability – a community of pro-active citizens in need of urgent and vital assistance - in the backdrop of a responsive state and competitive, robust and resilient political participation, can generate a sustainable, context-relevant process to cope with the problem of social vulnerability. The model, currently aimed at vulnerable citizens in a democratic state, has the potential of being extended to non-democracies as well as vulnerable non-citizens into its domain. (shrink)

“Confrontando el Adultocentrismo: Intervenciones Infancistas y Decoloniales en las Filosofías e Instituciones Educativas” explora el potencial transformador del infancismo (childism) como una orientación para criticar y transformar el adultismo y la colonialidad dentro de la educación. Editado por Tanu Biswas y Toby Rollo, el dossier especial se basa en las discusiones del Childism Institute para centrar a los niños como agentes epistémicos y desafiar la marginalización estructural de la infancia en los ámbitos sociopolíticos y filosóficos. El infancismo deconstruye y (...) critica los sesgos adultocéntricos, proponiendo un cambio profundo hacia el reconocimiento de la interdependencia entre infancia y adultez, y perspectivas relacionales únicas como esenciales para la justicia intergeneracional. Los artículos examinan cómo los sistemas educativos tradicionales (eurocéntricos) refuerzan las jerarquías adultistas, viendo a los niños y a las niñas como seres incompletos en una fase preparatoria llamada "infancia". Abogan por la reimaginación de los sistemas educativos con relaciones pedagógicas inclusivas en cuanto a edad, donde los niños y las niñas participen como contribuyentes activos. Los temas clave incluyen la educación democrática y la liberación como un proyecto intergeneracional, las críticas decoloniales de las filosofías de la infancia subyacentes a las prácticas educativas y el papel de los niños y de las niñas como agentes epistémicos y activistas. Algunas contribuciones argumentan a favor de desmantelar las estructuras adultistas e integrar a los niños, niñas y la infancia en marcos democráticos y liberadores. Otras vinculan explícitamente el adultismo con la colonialidad, mostrando cómo los proyectos coloniales eurocéntricos infantilizaron a los pueblos colonizados. Los artículos extienden el alcance del infancismo para abordar los legados históricos de la opresión racializada y epistémica, incluyendo exploraciones de imágenes racializadas de la infancia. Colectivamente, el dossier impulsa el infancismo como una intervención oportuna para reconfigurar la educación, la filosofía y las políticas, abrazando las contribuciones presentes de los niños y fomentando la equidad intergeneracional. (shrink)

"El baile cambió mi vida. Por primera vez sentí que hacía algo que me gustaba", recuerda Shampa Roy, de 18 años. Shampa , nacida en Calcuta, capital del estado indio de Bengala Occidental, creció entre orfanatos desde los cinco años, tras la muerte de sus padres. "Siempre estaba enfadada, no sé por qué. Pegaba a las otras niñas a la mínima provocación, la gente me evitaba. No respetaba ni a los profesores ni a la gente mayor", confiesa. Hasta que descubrió (...) la danza. Shampa se dio cuenta de que podía expresar sus inquietudes internas a través de pasos de baile. Explica que fue un descubrimiento que la llenó de alegría. (shrink)