Background and rationale Several factors that motivate individuals to participate in non-therapeutic studies have been identified. This study was conducted as limited data is available regarding these motivations from developing countries. Methods This was a single-centre study conducted over 4 months in which a questionnaire was administered to 102 healthy participants and 16 patient participants who had earlier taken part in non-therapeutic studies at our centre. Descriptive statistics and univariate analysis were used to analyse data. Results The most common motivation (...) among healthy participants was financial reward (65%) followed by altruism, free medical check up, curiosity and personal health benefit. Patient participants, however, most commonly said they consented to take part in the trial as they were ‘invited to participate by the treating physician’ (88%). In comparison with the patient participants, healthy participants were more likely to be satisfied with the financial reward (p=0.02), and recommend participation in studies to friends or relatives (p=0.0013). Conclusions The most common motivating factor to participate in non-therapeutic studies appears to be different for healthy participants (financial reward) and patient participants (invitation to participate by the physician). Participants also felt that adequate information and care was given to them during the trial, and that they would participate in future clinical studies, and would also recommend such studies to their friends. (shrink)

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot that processes and generates natural language text, offering human-like responses to a wide range of questions and prompts. Five days after its re...

This research note proposes the Bass Model as an empirical tool for analyzing the diffusion of new product and service innovations in Base of the Pyramid markets. This approach allows researchers to test whether factors that seem theoretically relevant to the speed and trajectory of adoption actually matter empirically. The authors model the growth of three BoP success stories using the Bass Model: Patrimonio Hoy, e-Choupal, and Grameen’s Village Phone. In two of the three cases considered, the Bass Model estimates (...) confirm Diffusion Theory predictions, but generate additional insight by quantifying the strength of the identified effects. In the case of PH, the Bass Model estimates conflict with the predictions of Diffusion Theory. Sorting out this paradox demonstrates the Bass Model’s potential to identify conflicting influences on consumer adoption, and measure how the relative strength of these competing forces nets out to determine the course of consumer adoption. (shrink)

The effect of recent experience on current behavior has been studied extensively in simple laboratory tasks. We explore the nature of sequential effects in the more naturalistic setting of automobile driving. Driving is a safety-critical task in which delayed response times may have severe consequences. Using a realistic driving simulator, we find significant sequential effects in pedal-press response times that depend on the history of recent stimuli and responses. Response times are slowed up to 100 ms in particular cases, a (...) delay that has dangerous practical consequences. Further, we observe a significant number of history-related pedal misapplications, which have recently been noted as a cause for concern in the automotive safety community. By anticipating these consequences of sequential context, driver assistance systems could mitigate the effects of performance degradations and thus critically improve driver safety. (shrink)

The ethical tension in childhood vaccination policies is often framed as one of balancing the value of choice with the duty to protect. Because infectious diseases spread from person to person, unvaccinated children are usually described as putting others around them at risk, violating a perceived right to be protected from harm. Editors of Lancet Infectious Diseases recently argued against mandatory vaccination, reminding us that the resort to mandatory vaccination as a means of achieving high vaccination rates is still very (...) much a topic of Western vaccine debates. The nation of Japan offers an interesting case study in childhood vaccination policy, as it has an entirely voluntary system that achieves high vaccination rates. In this paper, we offer an overview of Japanese childhood vaccine policy, suggest some ways to contextualize and understand how a voluntary system achieves high vaccination rates, and speculate on what the future of Japanese vaccination policymaking and government–public relations may hold. (shrink)

Ethical, evidence-informed decision making is undermined by the grave concerns that have emerged over the trustworthiness of clinical trials published in biomedical journals. The inescapable conclusion from this growing body of research is that what we see, even in the most highly regarded peer-reviewed journals, cannot be trusted at face value. Concerns of inaccurate, biased, and insufficient reporting of trials are impossible to resolve without access to underlying trial data. Access to such data, including things like clinical study reports—huge, unabridged, (...) detailed reports of clinical trials—would minimise the risk of distortions and selective publication. But the FDA, the world’s greatest custodian of those data, just sits on them. We see no reason why FDA should not publicly release clinical study reports with minimal redactions. The European regulator is already doing this, but FDA’s holdings are far greater. Data transparency is not simply an “opportunity” FDA might consider, but rather an ethical imperative. The Blueprint is good but does not go far enough. We do not need gates, barriers and committees between us and access to aggregate reports on drugs and other interventions which we are prescribing or using daily. Let’s leave the nannies at home. (shrink)

Study on the relationship between Jiva and.

(2013). Reviving the American Dream by Restoring Balance. World Futures: Vol. 69, Reclaiming Free Enterprise: The Scientific and Human Story, pp. 531-541.

How leaders and managers respond to not knowing is highly relevant given the complex, ambiguous, and chaotic business environment of the twenty-first century. Drawing on the literature from a variety of disciplines, the paper explores the dominant, unfavorable conceptualization of not knowing. The authors present some potential ethical implications of a negative view of not knowing and suggest how organizations would benefit from identifying any unhelpful aspects of the culture that may encourage unethical, undesirable, and/or hasty actions in situations of (...) not knowing. The paper specifically illustrates how patience, courage, honesty, integrity, and humility are integral to negative capability in the contexts of not knowing. Finally, the paper calls for deeper inquiry into the role of virtue ethics in preparing managers and leaders for not knowing and urges organizations to embrace negative capability in not knowing rather than engaging in damaging delusion. (shrink)

Irrespective of length of stay or voluntariness, (im)migration is the movement of individuals across borders. From national identity to labor markets, (im)migration affects various dimensions and spheres of social life. Currently, 3.6% of the global population are international (im)migrants, underscoring its profound significance in contemporary debates on humanitarianism, ethical governance, socioeconomic realities and sustainability. The analysis of (im)migration as a business is relevant since it raises important questions about precarious conditions and situations including marginalization, exploitation, and vulnerability in which (im)migrants (...) often find themselves, and about the much-needed policy and management and organizational practice responses needed to address them. This Special Issue aims to bring (im)migration to the attention of business and management researchers interested in ethics. The intention behind it is to enhance the current understanding of (im)migration in order to develop comprehensive policies, foster inclusive societal and organizational frameworks, and focus on the ethical issues raised by (im)migration for organizations and management, as well as the complex realities faced by (im)migrants all over the world. Moreover, we aim to call for new research perspectives and streams that would address the novel challenges that (im)migrants encounter as a result of technological advancements, climate (in)justice, the ‘dark side’ of the business of international (im)migration, and new—or the lack thereof—migration policies. (shrink)

Neurosurgery for psychiatric disorders, also sometimes referred to as psychosurgery, is rapidly evolving, with new techniques and indications being investigated actively. Many within the field have suggested that some form of guidelines or regulations are needed to help ensure that a promising field develops safely. Multiple countries have enacted specific laws regulating NPD. This article reviews NPD-specific laws drawn from North and South America, Asia and Europe, in order to identify the typical form and contents of these laws and to (...) set the groundwork for the design of an optimal regulation for the field. Key challenges for this design that are revealed by the review are how to define the scope of the law, what types of regulations are required, and how to approach international harmonization given the potential migration of researchers and patients. (shrink)

We present some interesting connections between PT symmetry and conformal symmetry. We use them to develop a metricated theory of electromagnetism in which the electromagnetic field is present in the geometric connection. However, unlike Weyl who first advanced this possibility, we do not take the connection to be real but to instead be PT symmetric, with it being \ rather than \ itself that then appears in the connection. With this modification the standard minimal coupling of electromagnetism to fermions is (...) obtained. Through the use of torsion we obtain a metricated theory of electromagnetism that treats its electric and magnetic sectors symmetrically, with a conformal invariant theory of gravity being found to emerge. An extension to the non-Abelian case is provided. (shrink)

본고에서는 폴 외젠느 펠리오가 둔황에서 출토한 티벳어 사본 중 PT 1과 PT 116이 어떤 용도로 사용되었는가를 밝히고자 한다. 선행 연구에서는 이 사본의 성격을 간과하고 있기 때문에 본고에서 논의의 주제로 삼았다. PT 1은 3가지 기원문 → 보살행과 관련한 기원문 → 진언문의 순서로 구성되어 있는 사본으로서 종교의례용 안내서이다. PT 116은 『보현행원왕경』 → 『금강경』 → 『학설강요서』(가제) → 『선경(禪經)모음집』(가제)이 연속적으로 서사되고 있다. 이 사본에서 각각의 문헌들이 배열된 방식은 우연적인 것이 아니라, 종교의식을 염두에 두고 서사된 것이다. 그 이유는 다섯 가지이다. 첫 번째로, 『보현행원왕경』은 인도에서부터 대승보살의 (...) 수행 절차로서 의례에 사용되어왔다. 그러므로 이 『보현행원왕경』이 서두에 배체된 것은 PT 116이 종교의식과 연관된 것임을 암시한다. 두 번째로, 『금강경』은 반야의 지혜를 설하는 경전이므로 선종에서 중시되었는데, 다른 한편으로는 그 독송에 의해 세속적 이익을 획득하는 것이 강조된다. 『금강경』이 지니는 이 두 가지 측면을 염두에 둔다면, PT 116은 종교의례에 독송용으로 사용되었을 것이다. 한국 사찰에서 법회를 시작할 때, 『금강경』 혹은 『천수경』 등의 경전을 독송하는 것과 흡사하다. 세 번째로, PT 116에 서사된 『학설강요서』에서는 예쎄데(Ye shes sde)의 『견해의 차별』의 영향이 보인다. PT 116을 종교의례에 사용함으로써 둔황 등에 거주하는 티벳인이 자연스럽게 중국 선사상의 가르침을 수용할 수 있도록 유도한 것이다. 네 번째로, 중국선사들의 선사상 모음집, 즉 『선경(禪經)모음집』에서는 선사들의 말씀과 경문을 열거한다. 주관과 객관이라는 이분법적 사유를 초월하는 분별이 없는 지혜[無分別智]로 체득되는 ‘법성(法性)’이 강조되면서 『법계(法界)를 설하는 경』이라는 게송 구문으로 마친다. 특히 『선경모음집』에 보이는 ‘마하요가’라는 말에서 인도불교에 대한 배려가 엿보인다. 둔황에 거주하는 티벳인에게 중국의 선불교가 인도 대승불교의 가르침과 맞닿아 있음을 피력하기 위해 고안된 장치가 ‘마하요가’라는 용어이다. 다섯 번째, 마지막 게송 구문은 기원문의 형태를 갖추고 있어서, 둔황에서 어떤 종교의식의 말미를 장식하는 구문으로 보인다. 결국 PT 1과 마찬가지로 PT 116도 동일하게 종교의례용 안내서라고 추정할 수 있다. (shrink)