There is limited guidance on how to assess the ethical acceptability of research risks that extend beyond research participants to third parties (or “research bystanders”). Community or stakeholder engagement has been proposed as one way to address potential harms to community members, including bystanders. Despite widespread agreement on the importance of community engagement in biomedical research, this umbrella term includes many different goals and approaches, agreement on which is ethically required or recommended for a particular context. We analyse the case (...) of a potential Zika virus human challenge trial to assess whether and how community engagement can help promote the ethical acceptability of research posing risks to bystanders. We conclude that, in addition to having intrinsic value, community engagement can improve the identification of bystander risks, effective approaches to minimizing them, and transparency about bystander risks for host communities. (shrink)

Gender representation in academic and professional settings is crucial for diversity and inclusivity. Editorial boards of scholarly journals shape research priorities, influencing global knowledge flow. In obstetrics and gynecology, with a focus on women’s health, board composition is of particular significance. This paper explores gender representation in international obstetrics and gynecology journal editorial boards, addressing potential disparities. The study adopts a cross-sectional design, analyzing the gender composition of editorial boards in global obstetrics and gynecology journals. A comprehensive search strategy identified (...) relevant journals, using databases and manual searches. Inclusion criteria ensured journals’ language of use and disciplinary scope within obstetrics and gynecology. Ethical considerations prioritized privacy and confidentiality, with data extracted systematically. Genderize.io aided in gender determination of the board members. At the time of writing, among 1175 editorial members from 20 journals, 44.8% are females. Representation varies across roles: editor-in-chief (27.27% female), deputy/executive positions (43.33% female), senior/specialized positions (50.66% female), wider/general positions (45.89% female), nonacademic positions (36% female), external academic positions (19.56% female), honorary/founding positions (33.33% female), and administrative positions (31.03% female). This study contributes a comprehensive analysis of gender representation in obstetrics and gynecology journal editorial boards. Persistent disparities across roles underscore the need for targeted interventions to foster diversity and equity. Ethical considerations emphasize the importance of addressing these disparities for social justice and research integrity. Recommendations to guide journals in fostering inclusive editorial practices, contributing to a more equitable landscape in obstetrics and gynecology research. (shrink)

It is shown that there are incomparable Σ2 e-degrees a, b such that every e-degree strictly less than a is also less than b.

Many guidelines for international research require that studies be responsive to host community health needs or health priorities. Although responsiveness possesses great intuitive and rhetorical appeal, existing conceptions are confusing and difficult to apply. Not only are there few examples of what research the responsiveness requirement permits and what it rejects, but its application can lead to contradictory results. Because of the practical difficulties in applying responsiveness and the danger that misapplying responsiveness could harm the interests of developing countries, we (...) argue that responsiveness should be refocused in three ways: in terms of (1) who enforces it, (2) under what standard, and (3) in what cases. We conclude that responsiveness should be applied by host country officials at the policy level with the exercise of judgment when externally funded research threatens to displace scarce local resources. (shrink)

The recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa began in the spring of 2014 and has since caused the deaths of over 6,000 people. Since there are no approved treatments or prevention modalities specifically targeted at Ebola Virus Disease , debate has focused on whether unproven interventions should be offered to Ebola patients outside of clinical trials. Those engaged in the debate have responded rapidly to a complex and evolving crisis, however, and this debate has not provided much opportunity for in-depth (...) analysis. Additionally, the existing literature on access to unproven therapies has focused on contexts like HIV/AIDS and oncology, which are very different than the Ebola epidemic. In this paper, we examine the ethical issues surrounding access to unproven therapies in the context of the recent Ebola outbreak to yield new insights about this controversial and unsettled issue. We argue first that, in this context, the interests of patients in obtaining access to unproven therapies are not fully aligned.. (shrink)

In rapidly evolving medical fields where the standard of care or prevention changes frequently, guidelines are increasingly likely to conflict with what participants receive in research. Although guidelines typically set the standard of care, there are some cases in which research can justifiably deviate from guidelines. When guidelines conflict with research, an ethical issue only arises if guidelines are rigorous and should be followed. Next, it is important that the cumulative evidence and the conclusions reached by the guidelines do not (...) eliminate the need for further research. Even when guidelines are rigorous and the study still asks an important question, we argue that there may be good reasons for deviations in three cases: (1) when research poses no greater net risk than the standard of care; (2) when there is a continued need for additional evidence, for example, when subpopulations are not covered by the guidelines; and (3) less frequently, when clinical practice guidelines can be justified by the evidence, but practitioners disagree about the guidelines, and the guidelines are not consistently followed as a result. We suggest that procedural protections may be especially useful in deciding when studies in the third category can proceed. (shrink)

Preface -- Introduction -- 1. Muslim reformists and the transition to English rule -- 2. The making of the "Indian Arab" and the tale of Sayyid Fadl -- 3. Rahmatullah Kairanwi and the Muslim cosmopolis -- 4. Haji Imdadullah Makki in Mecca -- 5. Nawab Siddiq Hasan Khan and the Muslim cosmopolis -- 6. Maulana Jafer Thanesri and the Muslim ecumene -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index.

Caring for seriously ill and dying patients plays a key role in the patient-physician story. The emotional experience, while at times gratifying, can also be quite burdensome. In “The Inner Lives o...

Papers presented at the Seminar on Ethics and Aesthetics in Indian Literary Practices, held at Udaipur in Rajasthan, India in 2009; organized by Department of English, Mohanlal Sukhadia University, Udaipur, India.

This essay argues that feminist legal theory offers an important, and underutilized, perspective to examine health law and policy. We use several theoretical frameworks developed by feminist legal theorists including relational autonomy, intersectionality, vulnerability theory, and the feminist critique of the public-private divide to demonstrate the utility of these theories to health law analysis. These frameworks provide insights relevant not only to issues that obviously relate to gender, but also to matters of choice, quality, and access that are less obviously (...) gender-related. We map three key areas of existing scholarship and future inquiry at the intersection of health law and feminist legal theory: patient choice and relational autonomy, patriarchy, power and patient safety, and access to health care and healthy living conditions at the public-private divide. Uniting these areas of inquiry is a nagging question central to the relationship between critical legal scholarship and pragmatic action to combat injustice: Can we use legal rights to achieve our aims even as we recognize them as tainted tools that have propped up oppressive social structures? A feminist agenda for health law and policy must grapple with this dilemma. (shrink)

This essay exposes how recent attempts at lethal injection reform have involved unethical and illegal research on prisoners. States are varying the doses and types of drugs used, developing methods designed for non-medical professionals to administer medical procedures, and gathering data or making provisions for the gathering of data to learn from executions gone wrong. When individual prisoners are executed under these conditions, states are conducting research on them. Conducting research or experimentation on prisoners in the process of reform is (...) problematic because it violates ethical frameworks and state laws. The Supreme Court has recently taken up the challenge of elucidating the standard for determining the constitutionality of lethal injection. If the Court suggests an approach to lethal injection reform that is akin to some of the more thoughtful and cautious approaches other courts have proposed, the Court's decision may also contravene state laws or ethical precepts regarding research with prisoners. Thus, this paper provides important limitations on the kinds of reform that may be permissible and outlines the open questions that must be addressed before it can be determined whether the risks and uncertainties involved in lethal injection can be remedied. (shrink)

Jesudason and Weitz's article examines two public policy debates in California, where both sides of the debate used similar language that had the potential to be detrimental to women. Specifically, they show how anti-abortion crusaders in California used similar language to describe why women's rights should be curtailed as pro-choice advocates use when fighting for more choice and privacy for women's reproductive decisions. This commentary builds upon their article by demonstrating the harm that such co-opting causes to women's rights using (...) the example of sex selective abortion. By examining the legislative history of state and national bills to ban sex-selective abortion, this commentary demonstrates how the anti-abortion lobby has adopted the language of pro-choice advocates quite effectively. Although the framing of this issue as being “woman-protective” is strategic and insincere, such political framing is powerful, as Jesudason and Weitz have noted. Anti-abortion activists have convinced lawmakers in many states that sex-selective abortion is a dire issue in their state and that they must restrict it in order to protect women. In fact, there is no evidence that sex selective abortion is a problem in the United States, yet these frames have been very effective in weakening women's privacy rights. Whenever woman-protective framings are invoked for self-serving purposes, women's rights advocates must work hard to uncover the truth behind these discourses to prevent successful legislative efforts that curtail women's reproductive freedom. (shrink)

While it is known that reward induces attentional prioritization, it is not clear what effect reward-learning has when associated with stimuli that are not fully perceived. The masked priming paradigm has been extensively used to investigate the indirect impact of brief stimuli on response behavior. Interestingly, the effect of masked primes is observed even when participants choose their responses freely. While classical theories assume this process to be automatic, recent studies have provided evidence for attentional modulations of masked priming effects. (...) Most such studies have manipulated bottom-up or top-down modes of attentional selection, but the role of “newer” forms of attentional control such as reward-learning and selection history remains unclear. In two experiments, with number and arrow primes, we examined whether reward-mediated attentional selection modulates masked priming when responses are chosen freely. In both experiments, we observed that primes associated with high-reward lead to enhanced free-choice priming compared to primes associated with no-reward. The effect was seen on both proportion of choices and response times, and was more evident in the faster responses. In the slower responses, the effect was diminished. Our study adds to the growing literature showing the susceptibility of masked priming to factors related to attention and executive control. (shrink)

While many models of ethical decision-making in marketing have been presented in the literature, no recent attempts have been made to explicitly account for ethical decision-making from a marketing research perspective. We present an ethical framework for marketing research, the various philosophies of ethics, and a few enduring marketing ethical decision-making models, thus laying the foundation for a descriptive model for ethics in marketing research. The authors then develop an integrated model of ethical decision-making that incorporates the perspectives of all (...) parties involved in the process of making ethical marketing research decisions, the various philosophies, and external variables. The proposed model is compared with some of the models considered in the literature and illustrated with a marketing research application. (shrink)

Music education has long been linked to various cognitive and developmental benefits for students and enhances cognitive abilities, including concentration and academic achievement. The aim of this study examines the impact of music education on academic achievement, cognitive development, and overall classroom engagement. Specifically, it explores how music learning correlates with student educational performance. The study looks into a number of factors, including enhanced cognitive abilities, social-and emotional benefits, development of critical thinking skills, economic barriers, and time constraints.The study involved (...) 150 students’ data through an online survey, the framework includes hypothesis the development and statistical analysis employing through SPSS to perform statistical tests, including Pearson correlation and T-test. The result indicates a positive correlation between student educational performances in Group 1, with extensive music education, demonstrating higher proficiency and improved academics performance compared to Group 2. The study concludes that music education is a positive consequence on students' performance in academics that underscores the significant role of music education to enhance the integration into educational curriculum can lead to improved cognitive development. (shrink)

BackgroundArtificial intelligence has been described as the “fourth industrial revolution” with transformative and global implications, including in healthcare, public health, and global health. AI approaches hold promise for improving health systems worldwide, as well as individual and population health outcomes. While AI may have potential for advancing health equity within and between countries, we must consider the ethical implications of its deployment in order to mitigate its potential harms, particularly for the most vulnerable. This scoping review addresses the following question: (...) What ethical issues have been identified in relation to AI in the field of health, including from a global health perspective?MethodsEight electronic databases were searched for peer reviewed and grey literature published before April 2018 using the concepts of health, ethics, and AI, and their related terms. Records were independently screened by two reviewers and were included if they reported on AI in relation to health and ethics and were written in the English language. Data was charted on a piloted data charting form, and a descriptive and thematic analysis was performed.ResultsUpon reviewing 12,722 articles, 103 met the predetermined inclusion criteria. The literature was primarily focused on the ethics of AI in health care, particularly on carer robots, diagnostics, and precision medicine, but was largely silent on ethics of AI in public and population health. The literature highlighted a number of common ethical concerns related to privacy, trust, accountability and responsibility, and bias. Largely missing from the literature was the ethics of AI in global health, particularly in the context of low- and middle-income countries.ConclusionsThe ethical issues surrounding AI in the field of health are both vast and complex. While AI holds the potential to improve health and health systems, our analysis suggests that its introduction should be approached with cautious optimism. The dearth of literature on the ethics of AI within LMICs, as well as in public health, also points to a critical need for further research into the ethical implications of AI within both global and public health, to ensure that its development and implementation is ethical for everyone, everywhere. (shrink)

Clinical research with children generates special ethical concern, raising the need for additional protections beyond those for research with competent adults. Most guidelines permit research with children when it offers a prospect of direct benefit, or poses minimal risk. Unlike many other guidelines, the U.S. federal regulations also allow institutional review boards to approve pediatric research that does not offer a prospect of direct benefit when the risks are no greater than a minor increase over minimal risk. To approve research (...) in this category, IRBs must find that two additional conditions obtain:1). The intervention or procedure presents experiences to subjects that are reasonably commensurate with those inherent in their actual or expected medical, dental, psychological, social, or educational situations; and 2). The intervention or procedure is likely to yield generalizable knowledge about the subjects disorder or condition which is of vital importance for the understanding or amelioration of the subjects disorder or condition. (shrink)

Imagine a study in which HIV-infected pregnant women are given antiretroviral treatment to determine how effectively it will prevent HIV transmission during childbirth. Each mother’s involvement in this study ends with the birth of her child, at which time her access to antiretrovirals provided by the study also ceases. At the outset of the study, the investigator and sponsor agree that after the child’s birth, they will refer mothers who require treatment for their HIV to a national program that provides (...) antiretroviral treatment and care. Assuming the Institutional Review Board raises no objections to this plan, should the research team consider their ethical obligations to participants fulfilled? If the investigator and sponsor were to consult the Common Rule, they would find little to suggest that there are any further ethical issues to address. (shrink)

The target article proposes a model involving the important but not well-investigated topics of curiosity and creativity. The model, however, falls short of providing convincing explanations of the basic mechanisms underlying these phenomena. We outline the importance of mechanistic thinking in dealing with the concepts outlined in this article specifically and within psychology and cognitive neuroscience in general.

Assigning a date to Kumārila is notoriously difficult. Kumārila’s dates are usually assigned through a relative chronology of Brahmanical and Buddhist philosophers with whom Kumārila engages or is engaged. This is a precarious method because the dates of these interlocutors are equally unstable. But what if in considering systematic dialogues (_śāstra_) to be the primary medium for interreligious philosophical debate we have missed a source that does engage with Kumārila, and that can be reliably dated? In this article, I turn (...) to a religious group whom, it has been previously thought, did not respond to Kumārila until the eighth century—Jainas—as well as to a genre that is not typically viewed as a site of systematic philosophical dialogue—narrative. I argue that the _Padmacarita_, a Jaina Rāmāyaṇa composed by a Digambara writer called Raviṣeṇa, contains a narrative refutation of Kumārila’s commentary to _Mīmāṃsāsūtra_ 1.1.2. By bringing to light this refutation, and explaining how Raviṣeṇa’s _Padmacarita_ can be reliably dated, I assign Kumārila’s _terminus ante quem_ to the date of the _Padmacarita_’s composition, 676 CE. Finally, I suggest that Raviṣeṇa’s _Padmacarita_ is the earliest extant Jaina text to discuss Kumārila’s claims, and that Jainas used narrative to reflect on Mīmāṃsā before they turned to _śāstra_ as another medium for this dialogue. (shrink)

Evidence suggests a limited contribution to the total research output in leading obstetrics and gynaecology journals by researchers from the developing world. Editorial bias, quality of scientific research produced and language barriers have been attributed as possible causes for this phenomenon. The aim of this study was to understand the prevalence of editorial board members based out of low and lower-middle income countries in leading journals in the field of obstetrics and gynaecology. The top 21 journals in the field of (...) obstetrics and gynaecology were selected based on their impact factor, SCImago ranking and literature search. The composition of the editorial boards of these journals was studied based on World Bank Income Criteria to understand the representation status of researchers from low and lower-middle income countries. A total of 1315 board members make up the editorial composition of leading obstetrics and gynaecology journals. The majority of these editors belong to high-income countries (n = 1148; 87.3%). Low (n = 6; 0.45%) and lower-middle income (n = 55; 4.18%) countries make up for a very minuscule proportion of editorial board members. Only a meagre 9 out of 21 journals have editorial board members from these countries (42.85%). Low and low-middle countries have poor representation in the editorial boards of leading obstetrics and gynaecology journals. Poor representation in research from these countries has grave consequences for a large proportion of the global population and multidisciplinary collaborative efforts must be taken to rapidly change this statistic with immediate effect. (shrink)

Brain death, or the determination of death by neurological criteria, has been described as a legal fiction. Legal fictions are devices by which the law treats two analogous things (in this case, biological death and brain death) in the same way so that the law developed for one can also cover the other. Some scholars argue that brain death should be understood as a fiction for two reasons: the way brain death is determined does not actually satisfy legal criteria requiring (...) the permanent cessation of all brain function, and brain death is not consistent with the biological conception of death as involving the irreversible cessation of the functioning of an organism as a whole. Critics counter that the idea that brain death is a legal fiction is deceptive and undemocratic. I will argue that diagnosing brain death as a hidden legal fiction is a helpful way to understand its historical development and current status. For the legal‐fictions approach to be ethically justifiable, however, the fact that brain death is a legal fiction not aligned with the standard biological conception of death must be acknowledged and made transparent. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 6, Page 22-23, June 2011.

Ali Shariati is typically understood as a theorist of “political Islam.” Yet his theological innovations within what is called “mystical thought” are also worthy of attention. Shariati does not consider mystical thought as an escapist, transcendent paradigm, but as a means to interpret and navigate the socio-political world. Of particular relevance to Shariati is an idea ubiquitous across Islamic mysticism: the transformation of the self. Within Islamic mysticism, there are various iterations of the idea that to become closer to God, (...) one must enact a radical transfiguration of the self, one that occurs simultaneously at the divine and existential registers. For Shariati, this transformation of the self is tied not only to one’s relationship with God, but also to the desire to alter the social realm. This is an ethos that, for Shariati, should infiltrate all aspects of life, material and immaterial, cerebral and social. If one wishes to overturn the status quo, one must cultivate not only a revolutionary subjectivity but a mystically-oriented subjectivity as well, or one that is characterized by constant change and growth. (shrink)

This volume is a critical investigation into the contemporary phenomenon of the dissensus of the globe and the planet, and the new terrains of consciousness that need to be negotiated towards a possibility for transformation. It examines the possibilities of alternate, sustainable modes of being and existing in a world which requires a unified, ethical, biopolitical worldview. The book explores themes like philosophical posthumanism and planetary concerns; disruption of cultural and intellectual inequality; bodily movement through nomadic subjectivity; dystopic spatialities of (...) game(re)play; globalization, and speculative imaginaries of the body; and theory of multiplicity. It also discusses impact of COVID on human beings, role of the neoliberal media, the question of rights of robots and cyborgs in sci-fi movies, and representation of refugees in literature. This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of English literature, political philosophy, cultural studies, literary cultures, post-colonial studies, critical theory, and social anthropology. (shrink)