Introduction: Critical care nurses work in a complex and stressful environment with diverse norms, values, interactions, and relationships. Therefore, they inevitably experience some levels of ethical conflict. Aim: The aim of this study is to analyze the relationship of ethical conflict with personal and organizational characteristics among critical care nurses. Methods: This descriptive-correlational study was conducted in 2017 on a random sample of 216 critical care nurses. Participants were recruited through stratified random sampling. Data collection tools were a demographic and (...) professional characteristics questionnaire, the Ethical Conflict in Nursing Questionnaire-Critical Care Version, and the Organizational and Managerial Factors Questionnaire. The data were analyzed using the SPSS software (v. 22.0). Ethical considerations: All participants were informed about the study’s aim and were assured that participation in and withdrawal from the study would be voluntary. Findings: The mean score of exposure to ethical conflict was 201.91 ± 80.38. The highest-scored conflict-inducing clinical situation was “working with professionally incompetent nurses or nurse assistants.” Married nurses, nurses with official employment, nurses with master’s degree, and nurses with the history of attending ethics education programs had significantly higher exposure to ethical conflict than the other nurses (p < 0.05). The significant predictors of exposure to ethical conflict were marital status, educational status, reward system, organizational culture, manager’s conduct, and organizational structure and regulations (p < 0.05). These predictors accounted for 37.2% of the total variance of exposure to ethical conflict. Conclusion: Critical care nurses experience moderate levels of exposure to ethical conflict. A wide range of personal and organizational factors can contribute to such exposure, the most significant of which is the professional incompetence of nursing colleagues, nurse assistants, and physicians. Therefore, many improvements at personal and organizational levels are needed to reduce critical care nurses’ exposure to ethical conflict. (shrink)

Professional institutions are increasingly confronted by fiscal constraints and political pressures to improve and increase their accountability in a competitive consumer-driven market. Accordingly, the need to ensure efficiency and accountability is of strategic importance. This article reports on a qualitative study of medical professionals that assessed the utility of financial incentives and external control methods derived from agency theory to ensure accountability of professionals. The authors argue that approaches derived from stewardship and institutional theories can extend the principal–agent perspective to (...) sustain greater social and ethical accountability. (shrink)

Human trafficking for organ removal (HTOR) should not be reduced to a problem of supply and demand of organs for transplantation, a problem of organized crime and criminal justice, or a problem of voiceless, abandoned victims. Rather, HTOR is at once an egregious human rights abuse and a form of human trafficking. As such, it demands a human-rights based approach in analysis and response to this problem, placing the victim at the center of initiatives to combat this phenomenon. Such an (...) approach requires us to consider how various measures impact or disregard victims/potential victims of HTOR and gives us tools to better advocate their interests, rights and freedoms. (shrink)

In this essay, at the outset the meaning of ‘public,’ as it will be deployed in the article, will be delineated. Then by surveying new media, this study intends to show how the information revolution can bring social and political change in Muslim societies, especially in the Middle East. However, in this way a particular level of differentiation will be provided by distinguishing not just such media as satellite broadcasting from the Internet, but the second from the first generation of (...) the Internet. With regard to the relation between online activities and offline social and political behavior, particularly the role of some new Web 2.0 applications, such as Facebook and Twitter, in changing Muslim publics will be discussed and some specific examples from the Muslim world, especially Iran, will be presented. Finally, the implication of this study would be that the Internet may have something to do with the transition from authoritarianism to democracy. (shrink)

InDriven from New Orleans, John Arena focuses on the contradictory role of nonprofits in facilitating the consensual removal of poor, black residents from inner-city spaces as the result of the privatisation and demolition of public housing. His account is constructive for delving into the on-the-ground struggles around public housing and the complexities of urban politics, and, more importantly, for situating the housing question at the heart of working-class struggles. His emphasis on how the gradual construction of consent was imperative in (...) paving the way for the sudden application of coercive force in the aftermath of Katrina is also a welcome correction to arguments that tend to see the post-Katrina policies as the cause célèbre of the striking and rapid reconfiguration of New Orleans. Arena, however, falls short of providing a historicised analysis of urban politics and the politics of nonprofits. (shrink)

This study integrates the motivating and challenging elements impacting on the implementation of organic farming practice in Iran. Analysis was based on the results of two surveys; one from organic farmers to determine motivating factors and the other from experts in organic farming to identify challenging factors. These surveys incorporated a gender perspective to enable gender comparison and analysis of the results presents a practical model to support program developers in Iranian organic agriculture. Gender comparison indicated that attitudes among farmers (...) to organic agriculture were slightly variable according to gender; while experts’ attitudes to organic agriculture remained constant and were not influenced by gender. The practical model ranked motivating factors as husbandry, financial, health-quality of life, general and personal; and challenging factors as financial, legal, educational, and technical. Finally, several suggestions are made according to these findings. (shrink)

Climate change poses as one of the greatest ethical challenges of the contemporary era and which is rapidly affecting all sectors and ecosystems, including natural ecosystems and human and social environments. The impacts on human societies, and societies’ ability to mitigate and adapt to these changes and to adhere to ethical principles are influenced by various factors, including gender. Therefore, this study aimed to design a model of climate change adaptation behavior among rice farmers in Mazandaran Province, northern Iran, based (...) on gender analysis and using the developed model of protection motivation theory. For this purpose, 173 female and 233 male rice farmers in Mazandaran Province were selected through stratified random sampling. The results showed that threat and coping appraisal had positive and significant effects on climate change adaptation behavior in both groups. Additionally, men’s and women’s perceived severity had the greatest impact on threat appraisal, and response costs had the greatest impact on their coping appraisal of climate change. Given that climate change adaptation behavior has been largely dependent on the development of ethical principles and the behavior of men and women toward climate change and based on the research findings, some suggestions are recommended at the mega, macro, meso and micro levels for male and female rice farmers to adapt to the climate change phenomenon. (shrink)

Background: The nature of children’s cancer comes with lots of ethical issues. Nurses are encouraged to adhere to ethical codes in their practice. Objectives: This study aimed to compare the perspectives of nurses and mothers of children with cancer regarding the adherence of nurses to ethical codes. Research design: In this descriptive-comparative study, a researcher-made questionnaire was used to assess the amount of adherence to Iranian nurses’ code of ethics in perspectives of pediatric oncology nurses and mothers. As a convention, (...) the total scores were categorized as optimal, average, and low adherence. Participants and context: A total of 200 mothers and 60 nurses in pediatric oncology wards of five major hospitals in Tehran, Iran, participated in 2016. Ethical considerations: Organizational approval by the university and informed consent were ensured before conducting the research. The principles of voluntariness, confidentiality, and anonymity were respected during the research process. Findings: Results showed the mean score of the adherence to ethical codes by nurses, as per the nurses is 86.71 (12.57) and as per the mothers is 78.67 (16.09). The highest frequency for “Low adherence” and “Optimal adherence” to code of ethics by nurses were “Respect for individual autonomy and decision-making” (mothers, 72% and nurses, 70%) and “Commitment to confidentiality” (mothers, 64% and nurses, 74%), respectively. This revealed a significant difference between the responses of the nurses and the mothers (p = 0.001). Discussion: The results support the other studies in Iran about the difference between the perspectives of patients and nurses about adherence of nurses to ethical codes. Conclusion: Integration of family-centered and conventional care in addition to more attention to the education of professional ethical principles could be helpful to improve the ethical performance of nurses in oncology pediatric wards. (shrink)

The use of technologies like artificial intelligence can drive productivity growth, efficiency and innovation. The goal of this study is to develop an anomaly detection method for locating flaws on the surface of sandwich panels using YOLOv5. The proposed algorithm extracts information locally from an image through a prediction system that creates bounding boxes and determines whether the sandwich panel surface contains flaws. It attempts to reject or accept a product based on quality levels specified in the standard. To evaluate (...) the proposed method, a comparison was made with a sandwich panel damage detection method based on a convolutional neural network and methods based on thresholding. The findings show that the proposed method, which is based on an object detector, is more accurate than the alternatives. The characteristics of the model, which can reject or accept a product according to the standard and limit allowable manufacturing flaws to obtain a quality product, also enable this system to improve industrial standards for producing sandwich panels while increasing speed. (shrink)

BackgroundThe pursuit of a cure for HIV is a high priority for researchers, funding agencies, governments and people living with HIV (PLWH). To date, over 250 biomedical studies worldwide are or have been related to discovering a safe, effective, and scalable HIV cure, most of which are early translational research and experimental medicine. As HIV cure research increases, it is critical to identify and address the ethical challenges posed by this research.MethodsWe conducted a scoping review of the growing HIV cure (...) research ethics literature, focusing on articles published in English peer-reviewed journals from 2013 to 2021. We extracted and summarized key developments in the ethics of HIV cure research. Twelve community advocates actively engaged in HIV cure research provided input on this summary and suggested areas warranting further ethical inquiry and foresight via email exchange and video conferencing.DiscussionDespite substantial scholarship related to the ethics of HIV cure research, additional attention should focus on emerging issues in six categories of ethical issues: (1) social value (ongoing and emerging biomedical research and scalability considerations); (2) scientific validity (study design issues, such as the use of analytical treatment interruptions and placebos); (3) fair selection of participants (equity and justice considerations); (4) favorable benefit/risk balance (early phase research, benefit-risk balance, risk perception, psychological risks, and pediatric research); (5) informed consent (attention to language, decision-making, informed consent processes and scientific uncertainty); and (6) respect for enrolled participants and community (perspectives of people living with HIV and affected communities and representation).ConclusionHIV cure research ethics has an unfinished agenda. Scientific research and bioethics should work in tandem to advance ethical HIV cure research. Because the science of HIV cure research will continue to rapidly advance, ethical considerations of the major themes we identified will need to be revisited and refined over time. (shrink)