Development economics became a separate discipline in economic science in the 50s but only in the 60s and mid-70s can one note a bigger interest in those issues. Gradually, there has appeared an extensive literature concerning economic development. In the 80s it turned out, however, that despite some successes, the economic development of the majority of mid- and less developed countries was less satisfactory than expected. During most of the 80s and 90s the so-called Washington consensus dominated theory and practice (...) of economic development. This notion covered the whole range of activities that were to lead the developing countries to greater welfare and prosperity. It included tough fiscal and monetary policy, deregulation, foreign trade and capital flow liberalisation, elimination of government subsidies, moderate taxation, liberalisation of interest rates, maintaining low inflation, etc. From the developmental experience of the past years, a new developmental paradigm is emerging, the elements of which can be described in the following way: • basic economic environment should support investments in the long term • economy should be very sensitive to market stimuli • human resources should complement physical capital • information quick flow and absorption in the fast changing world attribute the key role to the institutions and mechanisms which jointly react to the stimuli. • Wherever there are market imperfections, state intervention should be market friendly. • Social equality must be guaranteed if the economic development is supposed to last on a sustainable basis. (shrink)

The general aim of this book is to provide an elementary exposition of some basic concepts in terms of which both classical and non-dassicallogirs may be studied and appraised. Although quantificational logic is dealt with briefly in the last chapter, the discussion is chiefly concemed with propo gjtional cakuli. Still, the subject, as it stands today, cannot br covered in one book of reasonable length. Rather than to try to include in the volume as much as possible, I have put (...) emphasis on some selected topics. Even these could not be roverrd completely, but for each topic I have attempted to present a detailed and precise t’Xposition of several basic results including some which are non-trivial. The roots of some of the central ideas in the volume go back to J. Luka siewicz’s seminar on mathematicallogi. (shrink)

Epidemiological studies usually do not pose high risk to participants. At the same time they provide valuable knowledge and improve public and individual health. In many countries, studies involving human subjects are subject to ethics review. Research shows that the process of obtaining ethical approval from institutional research boards or research ethics committees is sometimes costly, time-consuming and seriously delays important research projects. In this article we consider arguments against and in favor of ethics review of epidemiological studies. On the (...) one hand, it seems that minimal risk epidemiological studies should not be a subject to ethics review, since any delay of an important study has its death toll and health costs. In this perspective, the calculus of costs and benefits supports rejecting the whole existing approach. Nevertheless, we argue that institutional research boards or ethics research committees protect research participants from wrongs and up till now are the best tools of social and political control over the research enterprise. (shrink)

Clinicians and administrators have a professional obligation to contribute (OTC) to improvement of healthcare quality. At the same time, participation in embedded research poses risks to healthcare institutions. Disclosure of an institution’s sensitive information could endanger relationships with patients and undermine its reputation. The existing ethical framework (EF) for learning healthcare systems (LHSs) does not address the conflict between the OTC and institutional interests. Ethical guidance and policy regulation are needed to create a safe environment for embedded research. In this (...) article we analyse the EF for LHSs and the concept of professionalism. We suggest that the EF should be supplemented with an obligation to protect provider’s legitimate interests. We define legitimate interests as those that enable providers to discharge their primary duties. We argue that both the OTC and the obligation to protect legitimate interests are grounded in the concept of medical professionalism and can be understood as a matter of contract between a democratic society and medical professionals. The proposed supplemented EF can be implemented into a regulatory system in three different ways: theself-regulating: where providers decide themselves how to balance the ethical claims, the centralised: where a governmental institution decides the right balance between providers’ interests and interests of a health system; and themediating: where medical professionals, the state and patients negotiate their interests. Our article contributes to the discussion on ethical relevance of providers’ interests and the regulatory model for weighing opposite interests in LHSs. (shrink)

BackgroundSharing de-identified individual-level health research data is widely promoted and has many potential benefits. However there are also some potential harms, such as misuse of data and breach of participant confidentiality. One way to promote the benefits of sharing while ameliorating its potential harms is through the adoption of a managed access approach where data requests are channeled through a Data Access Committee (DAC), rather than making data openly available without restrictions. A DAC, whether a formal or informal group of (...) individuals, has the responsibility of reviewing and assessing data access requests. Many individual groups, consortiums, institutional and independent DACs have been established but there is currently no widely accepted framework for their organization and function.Main textWe propose that DACs, should have the role of both promotion of data sharing and protection of data subjects, their communities, data producers, their institutions and the scientific enterprise. We suggest that data access should be granted by DACs as long as the data reuse has potential social value and provided there is low risk of foreseeable harms. To promote data sharing and to motivate data producers, DACs should encourage secondary uses that are consistent with the interests of data producers and their own institutions. Given the suggested roles of DACs, there should be transparent, simple and clear application procedures for data access. The approach to review of applications should be proportionate to the potential risks involved. DACs should be established within institutional and legal frameworks with clear lines of accountability, terms of reference and membership. We suggest that DACs should not be modelled after research ethics committees (RECs) because their functions and goals of review are different from those of RECs. DAC reviews should be guided by the principles of public health ethics instead of research ethics.ConclusionsIn this paper we have suggested a framework under which DACs should operate, how they should be organised, and how to constitute them. (shrink)

The role of classical logic as the base of formalized scientific theories seems to be unshakable. Yet legitimate doubts about its universal applicability in science have resulted in the development of alternative systems, among which constructive and modal logic are discussed in syntactic and semantic terms.

Background The ownership status of individual-level health data affects the manner in which it is used. In this paper we analyze two competing models of the ownership status of the data discussed in the literature recently: private ownership and public ownership. Main body In this paper we describe the limitations of these two models of data ownership with respect to individual-level health data, in particular in terms of ethical principles of justice and autonomy, risk mitigation, as well as technological, economic, (...) and conceptual issues. We argue that undifferentiated application of neither private ownership nor public ownership will allow us to resolve all the problems associated with effective, equitable, and ethical use of data. We suggest that, instead of focusing on data ownership, we should focus on the institutional and procedural aspects of data governance, such as using Data Access Committees (DACs) or equivalent managed access processes, which can balance the elements of these two ownership frameworks. Conclusion Undifferentiated application of the ownership concept (private or public) is not helpful in resolving problems associated with sharing individual-level health data. DACs or equivalent managed access processes should be an integral part of data governance. They can approve or disapprove data access requests after considering the potential benefits and harms to data subjects, their communities, primary researchers, and the wider society. (shrink)

Biomedical research involving human subjects is an arena of conflicts of interests. One of the most important conflicts is between interests of participants and interests of future patients. Legal regulations and ethical guidelines are instruments designed to help find a fair balance between risks and burdens taken by research subjects and development of knowledge and new treatment. There is an universally accepted ethical principle, which states that it is not ethically allowed to sacrifice individual interests for the sake of society (...) and science. This is the principle of precedence of individual. But there is a problem with how to interpret the principle of precedence of individual in the context of research without prospect of future benefit involving children. There are proposals trying to reconcile non-beneficial research involving children with the concept of the best interests. We assert that this reconciliation is flawed and propose an interpretation of the principle of precedence of individual as follows: not all, but only the most important interests of participants, must be guaranteed; this principle should be interpreted as the secure participant standard. In consequence, the issue of permissible risk ceiling becomes ethically crucial in research with incompetent subjects. (shrink)

In this article we attempt to answer the question of how the ethical and conceptual framework (ECF) for a learning health‐care system (LHS) affects some of the main controversies in research ethics by addressing five key problems of research ethics: (a) What is the difference between practice and research? (b) What is the relationship between research ethics and clinical ethics? (c) What is the ethical relevance of the principle of clinical equipoise? (d) Does participation in research require a higher standard (...) of informed consent than the practice of medicine? and (e) What ethical principle should take precedence in medicine? These questions allow us to construct two opposite idealized positions on the distinction between research and practice: the integration model and the segregation model of research and practice. We then compare the ECF for an LHS with these two idealized positions. We argue that the ECF for a LHS does not, in fact, solve these problems, but that it is a third, separate position in the relationship between research ethics and clinical ethics. Moreover, we suggest that the ECF for a LHS raises new ethical problems that require additional ethical analysis and justification. Our article contributes to the discussion on the relationship between research ethics and clinical ethics, revealing that although a learning health‐care system may significantly change the landscape of health care, some ethical dilemmas still require resolving on both theoretical and policy‐making levels. (shrink)

An Antique Prototype of the Modern Mathematisation of Psychology Ryszard Stachowski. (1) matter or that which is not in itself a particular thing, (2) form or essence, which is that precisely in accordance with which a thing is called a this, and ...

Epidemiological research is subject to an ethics review. The aim of this qualitative review is to compare existing ethical guidelines in English for epidemiological research and public health practice in regard to the scope and matter of an ethics review. Authors systematically searched PubMed, Google Scholar and Google Search for ethical guidelines. Qualitative analysis was applied to categorize important aspects of the an ethics review process. Eight ethical guidelines in English for epidemiological research were retrieved. Five main categories that are (...) relevant to the review of epidemiological research by Institutional Review Boards/Research Ethics Committees were distinguished. Within the scope of main categories, fifty-nine subcategories were analyzed. There are important differences between the guidelines in terms of the scope and matter of an ethics review. Not all guidelines encompass all identified ethically important issues, and some do not define precisely the scope and matter of an ethics review, leaving much to the ethics of the individual researchers and the discretion of IRBs/RECs. (shrink)

The return rate is considered here as a fuzzy probabilistic set. Then the expected return is obtained as a fuzzy subset in the real line. This result is a theoretical foundation for new investment strategies. All considered strategies result of comparison profit fuzzy index and limit value. In this way we obtain an imprecise investment recommendation. Financial equilibrium criteria are a special case of comparison of the profit index and the limit value. The following criteria are generalized here: the Sharpe's (...) Ratio, the Jensen's Alpha and the Treynor's Ratio. Moreover, the safety-first criteria are generalized here for the fuzzy case. The Roy Criterion, the Kataoka Criterion and the Telser Criterion are also generalized. Obtained results show that proposed theory is useful for the investment applications. (shrink)

Relations between individual traits and frequency of causing accidents have been analyzed. On the basis of results from 465 women and 277 men it has been found that the causing of accidents correlates with risk propensity and with risk taking influenced by self-destructive motivation. Persons often causing accidents are also absent minded to a greater degree, and experience depressive moods more frequently than persons rarely involved in accidents.

Digitization of a health record changes its accessibility. An electronic health record (EHR) can be accessed by multiple authorized users. Health information from EHRs contributes to learning healthcare systems’ development. The objective of this systematic review is to answer a question: What are ethical issues concerning research using EHRs in the literature? We searched Medline Ovid, Embase and Scopus for publications concerning ethical issues of research use of EHRs. We employed the constant comparative method to retrieve common ethical themes. We (...) descriptively summarized empirical studies. The study reveals the breadth, depth, and complexity of ethical problems associated with research use of EHRs. The central ethical question that emerges from the review is how to manage access to EHRs. Managing accessibility consists of interconnected and overlapping issues: streamlining research access to EHRs, minimizing risk, engaging and educating patients, as well as ensuring trustworthy governance of EHR data. Most of the ethical problems concerning EHR-based research arise from rapid cultural change. The framing of concepts of privacy, as well as individual and public dimensions of beneficence, are changing. We are currently living in the middle of this transition period. Human emotions and mental habits, as well as laws, are lagging behind technological developments. In the medical tradition, individual patient’s health has always been in the center. Transformation of healthcare care, its digitalization, seems to have some impacts on our perspective of health care ethics, research ethics and public health ethics. (shrink)

In this article, we seek to contribute to the debate on the requirement of disclosure in the context of informed consent for research. We defend the subjective standard of disclosure and describe ways to implement this standard in research practice. We claim that the researcher should make an effort to find out what kinds of information are likely to be relevant for those consenting to research. This invites researchers to take empirical survey information seriously, attempt to understand the cultural context, (...) talk to patients to be better able to understand what can be potentially different concerns and interests prevalent in the target population. The subjective standard of disclosure should be seen as a moral ideal that perhaps can never be perfectly implemented but still can and should be used as a normative ideal guiding research practice. In the light of these discussions, we call for more empirical research on what considerations are likely to be perceived as relevant by potential research participants recruited from different socio-economic and cultural groups. (shrink)

Assent is an important ethical and legal requirement of paediatric research. Unfortunately, there are significant differences between the guidelines on the details of assent.

The article reviews the book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, by Daniel C. Dennett.

Niniejszy tekst, poświęcony problematyce metafilozoficznej, jest zadedykowany Profesorowi Stanisławowi Judyckiemu. Artykuł składa się z dwu części. W pierwszej dokonuję charakterystyki metodologicznej filozofii, a w tej perspektywie analizuję zagadnienie jej stosunku do dyscyplin szczegółowych, światopoglądu i religii. Swoistość metodologiczna filozofii przemawia za potrzebą odróżnienia jej od każdej z tych trzech sfer. W części drugiej podejmuję z kolei problem roli i znaczenia filozofii w sytuacji zachodzących zmian kulturowych i technologicznych. Rodzi to pytania, czy refleksja filozoficzna nie utraci w przyszłości swojej pozycji i (...) roli w kulturze. W tym kontekście wskazuję na racje przemawiające za tym, że przyszła pozycja filozofia może być nie mniej istotna niż obecna. Zarazem analizuję cechy, które taka filozofia przyszłości winna posiadać. (shrink)

W złożonej argumentacji Jacka Wojtysiaka przeciwko argumentowi z ukrytości znajduje się przesłanka o istnieniu rzetelnie niewierzących. W niniejszym artykule przedstawiam powody, dla których klasyczny teista nie powinien akceptować tej przesłanki. W przeciwnym razie musiałby założyć, że wina za istnienie „rzetelnie niewierzących” tkwi po stronie Boga. A to prowadzi do destrukcyjnego dla teisty wniosku, że Bóg chrześcijański nie jest Bogiem wszech-przymiotów.

Autor podejmuje próbę rekonstrukcji heglowskiej filozofii człowieka. Człowiek w ujęciu Hegla to byt istniejący w czasie, skończony. samotworzący się w wyniku własnego działania, zakorzeniony w historii i społeczeństwie jako właściwych sobie mediach egzystencji. Istotnym momentem samorozwoju człowieka jest stopniowe zdobywanie przezeń samowiedzy. W prooesie tym jednakże człowiek ostatecznie utożsamia się z absolutem, tracąc swą samoistność bytową. Świadczy to, że refleksja filozoficzna nad człowiekiem w ramach heglowskiego systemu jest o tyle możliwa, o ile pewien jego fragment zostanie wyodrębniony w całości (ten (...) mianowicie, który dotyczy ludzkich form istnienia i działania), gdy intencja podstawowa myśli Hegla skierowana jest nie na człowieka, ale na absolut. (shrink)