Traditionally, hospital emergency readiness plans primarily addressed natural disasters, but because of preparations for year 2000, the arrival of terrorism in the United States, and the potential for mass casualties, hospitals were prompted to bring together new partners and create new emergency readiness plans. These new plans, however, give rise to a number of important issues hospitals must consider. First, hospitals must consider legal liability that might arise during an emergency. For example, what liability might arise when decision are made (...) regarding the provision of individual treatment versus mass triage? Second, hospitals must be cognizant of relevant privacy rules, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, as they apply to public health emergencies activities. Third, hospitals must be aware of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act which requires Medicarefunded hospitals to screen patients for emergency medical conditions and prohibits their transfer until they are stabilized. (shrink)

Traditionally, hospital emergency readiness plans primarily addressed natural disasters, but because of preparations for year 2000, the arrival of terrorism in the United States, and the potential for mass casualties, hospitals were prompted to bring together new partners and create new emergency readiness plans. These new plans, however, give rise to a number of important issues hospitals must consider. First, hospitals must consider legal liability that might arise during an emergency. For example, what liability might arise when decision are made (...) regarding the provision of individual treatment versus mass triage? Second, hospitals must be cognizant of relevant privacy rules, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, as they apply to public health emergencies activities. Third, hospitals must be aware of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act which requires Medicarefunded hospitals to screen patients for emergency medical conditions and prohibits their transfer until they are stabilized. (shrink)

This study examines the use of a modified form of the theory of planned behavior in understanding the decisions of undergraduate students in engineering and humanities to engage in cheating. We surveyed 527 randomly selected students from three academic institutions. Results supported the use of the model in predicting ethical decision-making regarding cheating. In particular, the model demonstrated how certain variables (gender, discipline, high school cheating, education level, international student status, participation in Greek organizations or other clubs) and moral constructs (...) related to intention to cheat, attitudes toward cheating, perceptions of norms with respect to cheating, and ultimately cheating behaviors. Further the relative importance of the theory of planned behavior constructs was consistent regardless of context, whereas the contributions of variables included in the study that were outside the theory varied by context. Of particular note were findings suggesting that the extent of cheating in high school was a strong predictor of cheating in college and that engineering students reported cheating more frequently than students in the humanities, even when controlling for the number of opportunities to do so. (shrink)

Facing an increasing number and variety of issues with social salience, firms must determine how to engage with issues that likely have a significant impact on them. Integrating issues management and salience theories, the authors find that firms engage with socially contested issues—where there is a high degree of societal disagreement—in a different manner from issues that have social consensus, or high agreement. Examining social issue resolutions filed by shareholders from 1997 to 2009, the study finds that socially contested issues, (...) as well as those issues with social consensus, are both likely to result in engagement by the firm. For social issues with consensus, a firm is more likely to opt for a low level of shareholder engagement whereas resolutions regarding contested issues lead to engaging shareholders at a higher level. These findings shed new light on the IM and issue salience literature streams that have suggested firms will react differently to these types of issues, even while they remain largely untested. Finally, firms become less engaged with perennial issues over time. rather than more, providing new guidance to researchers, shareholder activists, and firms alike. To the authors’ knowledge, such fined-grained insight into expected levels of firm engagement with social issue salience has not been put forth previously. (shrink)

Concerns about the possibility of a sharp rise in the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease in Western nations have led to both the significant deployment of resources and the development of national research and healthcare plans. Although often focused on treatment, substantial efforts have also been dedicated toward preventing or delaying AD onset. As a result, recent technological and biomedical advances have greatly improved the understanding of AD pathophysiology. While some new tests can assess only risk ), some tests for certain (...) biomarkers (e.g., amyloid beta accumulation in the brain detected via positron... (shrink)

As understanding of the human microbiome improves, novel therapeutic targets to improve human health with microbial therapeutics will continue to expand. We outline key considerations of balancing risks and benefits, optimising access, returning key results to research participants, and potential conflicts of interest.

Research has established that exposure to a combination of diagnostic (i.e., relevant) and nondiagnostic (i.e., irrelevant) information results in predictions that are more regressive than predictions based on diagnostic information (Hackenbrack, 1992; Hoffman and Patton, 1997). This phenomenon has been labeled the dilution effect (e.g., Tetlock and Boettger, 1989) and has been documented when individuals make predictions. This study tests for the dilution effect when small groups make predictions, and examines the effect of using a procedure designed to reduce the (...) dilution effect. Results indicate that group predictions are influenced by nondiagnostic information in the same manner as are individual predictions, and allowing participants to rate the diagnosticity of information prior to making predictions does not reduce the dilution effect. (shrink)

An ongoing argument often made by business ethicists is that a singular preoccupation on profitability, will lead, in the long run, to disvalue for all the stakeholders and the communities it affects, and often, economic challenges for the company. On the other hand, we argue, a preoccupation with ethics and CSR as the primary aims of a for-profit company, it is, on its own, like a preoccupation with profitability, unsustainable. Indeed, without economic viability, a company will fail. Both of these (...) contentions point to our conclusion that one must take care in changing habits and rethinking business models. We illustrate through case examples, that merely being ethical and socially responsible is insufficient for the long-term well-being of business just as a preoccupation with profits for their own sake also is insufficient. What is realistic, practical, pragmatic, sustainable and profitable for corporations, and what also serves the interests of multiple stakeholders including those in the communities they serve, is a true balance of ethics, CSR, and economic value-added. Expanding on the recent work of Husted and Allen, we call this a strategic global strategy approach. (shrink)

This is a study involving three HIV clinics in the Canadian provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador, and Manitoba. We sought to identify ethical issues involving health care providers and clinic clients in these settings, and to gain an understanding of how different ethical issues are managed by these groups. We used an institutional ethnographic method to investigate ethical issues in HIV clinics. Our researcher conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews, compiled participant observation notes, and studied health records in order to document ethical (...) issues in the clinics, and to understand how health care providers and clinic clients manage and resolve these issues. We found that health care providers and clinic clients have developed work processes for managing ethical issues of various types: conflicts between client-autonomy and public health priorities, difficulties associated with the criminalization of nondisclosure of HIV positive status, challenges with non-adherence to HIV treatment, the protection of confidentiality, barriers to treatment access, and negative social determinants of health and well-being. Some ethical issues resulted from structural disadvantages experienced by clinic clients. The most striking findings in our study were the negative social determinants of health and well-being experienced by some clinic clients – such as experiences of violence and trauma, poverty, racism, colonization, homelessness, and other factors affecting well-being such as problematic substance use. These negative determinants were at the root of other ethical issues, and are themselves of ethical concern. (shrink)

Packed with ideas designed to help children learn to sing, this booklet offers criteria for selecting songs, strategies to bring out the best in children's voices, and suggestions for games, ideas, and resources.

Causal structure learning from time series data is a major scientific challenge. Existing algorithms assume that measurements occur sufficiently quickly; more precisely, they assume that the system and measurement timescales are approximately equal. In many scientific domains, however, measurements occur at a significantly slower rate than the underlying system changes. Moreover, the size of the mismatch between timescales is often unknown. This paper provides three distinct causal structure learning algorithms, all of which discover all dynamic graphs that could explain the (...) observed measurement data as arising from undersampling at some rate. That is, these algorithms all learn causal structure without assuming any particular relation between the measurement and system timescales; they are thus rate-agnostic. We apply these algorithms to data from simulations. The results provide insight into the challenge of undersampling. (shrink)

In the current study we compared academic locus of control (ALoC) and perceived quality of academic life (PQAL) across three groups of university students: those without disabilities, those with attention deficit disorder or learning disabilities (ADD-LD), and those with other disabilities. Results showed no significant differences in ALoC scores, with each group reporting an internal ALoC. However, students with other disabilities (e.g., sensory, motor, chronic health, and/or mental health) reported significantly lower satisfaction with their overall quality of academic life than (...) students without disabilities. Applied implications are discussed along with recommendations for further research. (shrink)

What is introspective know ledge of one’s own intentional states like? This paper aims to make plausible the view that certain cases of self-knowledge, namely the cogito-type ones, are enough like perception to count as cases of quasi-observation. To this end it considers the highly influential arguments developed by Sydney Shoemaker in his recent Royce Lectures. These present the most formidable challenge to the view that certain cases of self-knowledge are quasi-observational and so deserve detailed examination. Shoemaker’s arguments are directed (...) against two models of ordinary perception, the “object perception model” and the “broad perceptual model”. I argue that the core theses that Shoemaker associated with them are either dubious in their own right or applicable to certain cases of self-knowledge. Overall the aim is to show that there is such a variety of patterns in each case that simple analogies or disanalogies are unhelpful. (shrink)

Cynthia Willett brings together diverse insights from social psychology, classical and contemporary literature, and legal and justice theory to redefine the basis of the moral and legal person. Feminists, communitarians, and postmodern thinkers have made clear that classical liberalism, with its emphasis on individual autonomy and excessive rationalism, is severely limited. Although she is sympathetic with the liberal view, Willett finds it necessary to go further. For her, attention to the social dimensions of the family and civil society is (...) critical if issues of race, gender, class, and sexuality are to be taken seriously. Interdependency, not autonomy, is of increasing significance in an era of globalization. Willett proposes an alternate normative theory that recognizes the impact of social forces on individual well-being. Citizenship in a democracy should not be defined solely on the basis of rights to autonomy, such as bare rights to property or free speech, she explains. Rather, citizenship should be defined first of all in terms of the rights, responsibilities, and capacities of the social person. It is within the African American tradition of political thought that Willett finds a more useful definition of human identity and political freedom. The African American experience offers a compelling vision of social change and a deeper understanding of what it means to be a social person. By focusing on everyday battles against racism, Willett contends, we can gain valuable insight into the meaning of justice. (shrink)

In this interview, Cynthia Hammond sits down with Marc Lafrance in order to discuss the 30-year sketching practice that led to her exhibition, Drawings for a Thicker Skin, in 2012. In this practice, Hammond made small, quick drawings of the clothes she would need for trips or key professional events. As she explains, the drawings were not just essential to knowing what to pack; they were essential to being able to pack. While she never conceived of the practice as (...) art, when invited to exhibit the drawings she found a way to relate this idiosyncratic and private practice to a larger set of ontological concerns. Clothing as a second skin is the key idea here, as Hammond and Lafrance explore what it means to navigate identity, idealized self-image, professional ‘passing’ and the skin ego. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the ongoing discussion of sustainability behaviors by introducing the construct of perceived organizational support toward the environment. We propose and empirically test an integrated model whereby we test the association of POS-E with employees’ organizational citizenship behaviors toward the environment as well as to job attitudes. Results indicated that POS-E was positively related to OCB-E, job satisfaction, organizational identification, and psychological empowerment, and negatively related to turnover intentions. We also found that psychological empowerment partially mediated the (...) relationship between POS-E and the dependent variables. We discuss the theoretical implications as well as practical implications for managers seeking to encourage sustainability in their organizations. (shrink)

This paper develops a notion of manipulative gaslighting, which is designed to capture something not captured by epistemic gaslighting, namely the intent to undermine women by denying their testimony about harms done to them by men. Manipulative gaslighting, I propose, consists in getting someone to doubt her testimony by challenging its credibility using two tactics: “sidestepping” and “displacing”. I explain how manipulative gaslighting is distinct from reasonable disagreement, with which it is sometimes confused. I also argue for three further claims: (...) that manipulative gaslighting is a method of enacting misogyny, that it is often a collective phenomenon, and, as collective, qualifies as a mode of psychological oppression. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Cynthia Willett HEGEL, ANTIGONE, AND THE POSSIBILITY OF ECSTATIC DIALOGUE In his lectures on aesthetics, Hegel argues that drama is the highest form of art. Only drama can resolve, or sublate (auflieben), an opposition between objective and subjective poles ofaesthetic experience.1 This opposition takes its penultimate form in the difference between epic and lyric poetry. Subjective feelings expressed in lyric and the objective representation ofevents in epic are (...) sublated in classical drama as ethical character and action. In this article I will examine both what Hegel does and does not say about the structure and function ofclassical drama in order to determine its role in the education of humanity, or what Hegel calls the "phenomenology of spirit." As it turns out, drama is not only a climactic moment in the development of spirit. The structure ofdrama also traces a paradigm and an historical origin for Hegel's dialectic. The ironic reversals and discoveries that emplot tragic drama also constitute dialectic. An immediate consequence of this parallel is mat, in accordance with Aristode's definition of tragic drama, dialectic demands the catharsis, or purging, of emotion from educated spirit.2 After establishing the analogy between dialectic and cathartic drama, I turn to the exemplary role that is played by Sophocles' Antigone in the Phenomenology ofSpirit. A reinterpretation of the play suggests that Hegel fails to see that emotional engagement, or the unsublated subjective feeling relegated to die lower art of lyric, in fact orients the dramatic action of Antigone. The resemblance between drama and dialectic suggests that desire can no more be purged from dialectic than from classical tragedy. As a consequence, Hegelian dialectic should be reconceived in terms of a notion of tragedy that is not cathartic but ecstatic. Philosophy and Literature, © 1990, 14: 268-283 Cynthia Willett269 In the AesUietks, Hegel places drama after epic and lyric as the third and final moment of the highest stage of art. Drama presents actions that are ethical and thus differs from the lyrical expression of feelings as well as the adventures narrated in epic (A, pp. 1158; 474). Hegel's definition of epic in terms of narration and description suggests that the language of epic functions as representation. Representational language externalizes, or objectifies, spirit's movement in a series ofevents which are related by the epic poet. This narration functions without the mediation ofa subject, which is to say without an "agent's inner will and character" (A, pp. 1160; 476). Lyric poetry, on the other hand, concerns feelings or "the inner life alone" (A, pp. 984; 254). In accordance with its subject matter, the language oflyric is not representational but expressive. Drama presents actions before an audience, such actions occurring primarily in the mode of speech (A, pp. 1159; 475). What we can characterize as the "speech-acts" performed in drama carry out intentions of, or ends soughtby, the main character. Drama advances dialectic because, as Hegel writes, "drama does not fall apart into a lyric inner life and an external sphere as its opposite, but displays an inner life and its external realization" (A, pp. 1 160; 476). First, events which occur episodically in epic attain the unity of a single action that comprises dramatic plot. Secondly, a "cleaned-up" version ofthe "chaotic" feelings expressed in lyric poetry develops into the intention of a character to adher to a universal ethical principle. It is important to emphasize that, according to Hegel, drama should not draw any of its effect from subjective emotions. Drama sublates lyrical feeling into ethical law. Only thus does drama bring together the epic-making events and lyrical subjectivity, notby wayofa mechanical synthesis, but in a metamorphosis enabling elements initially opposed to give rise to an original whole. The proximity ofdrama to dialectical thought appears in the contrast Hegel draws between dramatic action and action which is prosaic, or philosophically insignificant (A, pp. 1159; 475). Dramatic action, Hegel explains, "is notconfined to the simple and undisturbed accomplishment ofa specific aim; on the contrary, it rests entirely on collisions ofcircumstances, passions, and characters... which in turn necessitate a resolution of the conflict and discord" (A, pp. 1159; 475). On the other hand, a prosaic, or ordinary... (shrink)

Expressions used in religious contexts have often seemed odd and paradoxical to philosophers. Statements have appeared in Christian discourse to the effect that God is not a person and yet is a person, that he is a servant and a king, that he is nothingness and being itself. These statements appear unintelligible either because their terms are self-contradictory or because they are mutually exclusive.

Interspecies Ethics explores animals' vast capacity for agency, justice, solidarity, humor, and communication across species. The social bonds diverse animals form provide a remarkable model for communitarian justice and cosmopolitan peace, challenging the human exceptionalism that drives modern moral theory. Situating biosocial ethics firmly within coevolutionary processes, this volume has profound implications for work in social and political thought, contemporary pragmatism, Africana thought, and continental philosophy. Interspecies Ethics develops a communitarian model for multispecies ethics, rebalancing the overemphasis on competition in (...) the original Darwinian paradigm by drawing out and stressing the cooperationist aspects of evolutionary theory through mutual aid. The book's ethical vision offers an alternative to utilitarian, deontological, and virtue ethics, building its argument through rich anecdotes and clear explanations of recent scientific discoveries regarding animals and their agency. Geared toward a general as well as a philosophical audience, the text illuminates a variety of theories and contrasting approaches, tracing the contours of a postmoral ethics. (shrink)

Comparatively little scholarly attention has been given to the question of futility in chronic psychiatric disorders, with the exception of a small body of work on so-called end-stage anorexia nervosa. A review of this literature provides the background for a critical examination of whether the concept of futility has any clinically meaningful, ethically justifiable, and legally defensible application to AN. In this article, the arguments for and against futility judgments in AN are analyzed with special emphasis on determinations of capacity (...) in this serious mental illness. Parallels between the futility disputes in medical and psychiatric disorders, where applicable, will be drawn to further illuminate whether or not the concept that continued psychiatric treatment for AN is ever truly futile. (shrink)

Gilbert and colleagues point out the discrepancy between the limited empirical data illustrating changes in personality following implantation of deep brain stimulating electrodes and the vast number of conceptual neuroethics papers implying that these changes are widespread, deleterious, and clinically significant. Their findings are reminiscent of C. P. Snow’s essay on the divide between the two cultures of the humanities and the sciences. This division in the literature raises significant ethical concerns surrounding unjustified fear of personality changes in the context (...) of DBS and negative perceptions of clinician-scientists engaged in DBS. These concerns have real world implications for funding future innovative, DBS trials aimed to reduce suffering as well as hampering true interdisciplinary scholarship. We argue that the philosophical tradition of pragmatism and the value it places on empirical inquiry, experiential knowledge, and inter-disciplinary scholarship – reflecting diverse ways of knowing – provides a framework to start to address the important questions Gilbert and colleagues raise. In particular, we highlight the importance of expert clinician knowledge in contributing to the neuroethical questions raised by Gilbert and colleagues. Finally, we provide illustrative examples of some of our interdisciplinary empirical research that demonstrate the iterative cycle of inquiry characteristic of pragmatism in which conceptual neuroethics questions have led to empirical studies whose results then raise additional conceptual questions that give rise to new empirical studies in a way that highlights the contributions of the humanities and the sciences. (shrink)

To date no one has identified or described the population of incapacitated patients being treated in an inpatient setting who lack proxy decision-makers. Nor, despite repeated calls for protocols to be developed for decision-making, has any institution reported on the utilization of such a protocol. In 2005, our urban tertiary care hospital instituted a protocol utilizing community members of the ethics committee to meet with the medical providers and engage in shared decision-making for patients without proxies. We conducted a retrospective (...) chart review and in this paper describe nearly 200 patients who were identified and treated according to the protocol over a 12 year period. After an aggressive search, family members were located for a surprising number of patients, leaving 80 patients who needed decisions to be made utilizing the PWP committee. We review the decisions required, the results of the shared decision-making meetings, and the patient outcomes. Our experience has shown that a protocol involving community volunteers to make decisions for PWPs in a timely manner is feasible and ethically defensible. The protocol has been accepted by physicians and utilized with increasing frequency. Because it was possible to gather at least minimal information on most patients, a standard of “informed best interest” was used to make decisions. PWP committee recommendations varied, but in all cases agreement was reached with the attending physicians. (shrink)

Abstract:This research examines in a collectivist culture the influence of cognitive moral development, attitudes toward rule-directed behavior, and the perceived importance of codes of conduct and professional standards on auditor judgments about ethical dilemmas. Taiwanese audit professionals were asked to respond to two ethical dilemmas. The first dilemma concerns a situation in which the auditor is asked to acquiesce to a controller’s request to conceal an irregularity. The probability that the auditor’s acquiescence is discovered (i.e., the threat of a sanction) (...) was manipulated in this scenario. The second dilemma involves a case in which the auditor has information that a write-down of obsolete inventory will have a material effect on the earnings of a corporation, and must consider whether or not to inform an individual who is heavily invested in the corporation. The individual’s ingroup status (i.e., whether the individual was a relative or friend of the auditor) was manipulated in this scenario.Auditors were more likely to agree with violations of ethical standards in the first scenario (concealing a client employee’s irregularity) than in the second (revealing confidential information to parties outside the client). In the first scenario, auditors with lower levels of cognitive moral development were less likely to agree with violations of ethical standards when the threat of a sanction was present, while the judgments of those with higher levels of cognitive moral development were not affected by the presence of sanctions. Contrary to expectations, auditors were more likely to agree with violations of ethical standards when the individual involved was a close friend, rather than a relative. In general, as the perceived importance of rules increased, the propensity to violate the Code of Conduct decreased. (shrink)

Gilbert and colleagues point out the discrepancy between the limited empirical data illustrating changes in personality following implantation of deep brain stimulating electrodes and the vast number of conceptual neuroethics papers implying that these changes are widespread, deleterious, and clinically significant. Their findings are reminiscent of C. P. Snow’s essay on the divide between the two cultures of the humanities and the sciences. This division in the literature raises significant ethical concerns surrounding unjustified fear of personality changes in the context (...) of DBS and negative perceptions of clinician-scientists engaged in DBS. These concerns have real world implications for funding future innovative, DBS trials aimed to reduce suffering as well as hampering true interdisciplinary scholarship. We argue that the philosophical tradition of pragmatism and the value it places on empirical inquiry, experiential knowledge, and inter-disciplinary scholarship – reflecting diverse ways of knowing – provides a framework to start to address the important questions Gilbert and colleagues raise. In particular, we highlight the importance of expert clinician knowledge in contributing to the neuroethical questions raised by Gilbert and colleagues. Finally, we provide illustrative examples of some of our interdisciplinary empirical research that demonstrate the iterative cycle of inquiry characteristic of pragmatism in which conceptual neuroethics questions have led to empirical studies whose results then raise additional conceptual questions that give rise to new empirical studies in a way that highlights the contributions of the humanities and the sciences. (shrink)

Gilbert and colleagues point out the discrepancy between the limited empirical data illustrating changes in personality following implantation of deep brain stimulating electrodes and the vast number of conceptual neuroethics papers implying that these changes are widespread, deleterious, and clinically significant. Their findings are reminiscent of C. P. Snow’s essay on the divide between the two cultures of the humanities and the sciences. This division in the literature raises significant ethical concerns surrounding unjustified fear of personality changes in the context (...) of DBS and negative perceptions of clinician-scientists engaged in DBS. These concerns have real world implications for funding future innovative, DBS trials aimed to reduce suffering as well as hampering true interdisciplinary scholarship. We argue that the philosophical tradition of pragmatism and the value it places on empirical inquiry, experiential knowledge, and inter-disciplinary scholarship – reflecting diverse ways of knowing – provides a framework to start to address the important questions Gilbert and colleagues raise. In particular, we highlight the importance of expert clinician knowledge in contributing to the neuroethical questions raised by Gilbert and colleagues. Finally, we provide illustrative examples of some of our interdisciplinary empirical research that demonstrate the iterative cycle of inquiry characteristic of pragmatism in which conceptual neuroethics questions have led to empirical studies whose results then raise additional conceptual questions that give rise to new empirical studies in a way that highlights the contributions of the humanities and the sciences. (shrink)

Comedy, from social ridicule to the unruly laughter of the carnival, provides effective tools for reinforcing social patterns of domination as well as weapons for emancipation. In Irony in the Age of Empire, Cynthia Willett asks: What could embody liberation better than laughter? Why do the oppressed laugh? What vision does the comic world prescribe? For Willett, the comic trumps standard liberal accounts of freedom by drawing attention to bodies, affects, and intimate relationships, topics which are usually neglected by (...) political philosophy. Willett's philosophical reflection on comedy issues a powerful challenge to standard conceptions of freedom by proposing a new kind of freedom that is unapologetically feminist, queer, and multiracial. This book provides a wide-ranging, original, thoughtful, and expansive discussion of citizenship, social manners, and political freedom in our world today. (shrink)

Although nanotechnology is often defined as operations on the 10-9 meters, the lack of charisma in the scale-bound definitions has been fortified by remarkable dreams and alluring promises that spark excitement for nanotechnology. The story of the rhetorical development of nanotechnology reveals how speculative claims are powerful constructions that create legitimacy in this emerging technological domain. From its inception, nanotechnology has been more of a dream than reality, more fiction than fact. In recent years, however, the term nanotechnology has been (...) actively drawn toward the present to begin to deliver on the fantastic expectations. This debate over time and timing is loaded with paradox. This work examines how future claims work to define what counts as nanotechnology and reveals dilemmas that accompany temporal disjunctures. Science and politics converge in debates about the future of technology as expectations serve to create and enforce power and legitimacy in the emerging area. (shrink)

Massively parallel sequencing, also known as next‐generation sequencing, has the potential to significantly improve newborn screening programs in the United States and around the world. Compared to genetic tests whose use is well established, sequencing allows for the analysis of large amounts of DNA, providing more comprehensive and rapid results at a lower cost. It is already being used in limited ways by some public health newborn screening laboratories in the United States and other countries—and it is under study for (...) broader and more widespread use, including as a core part of newborn screening programs. Sequencing technology has the potential to significantly improve these essential public health programs. For many of the conditions that newborns are already screened for, sequencing can return more specific and more sensitive results. The technology could also enable newborn screening programs to expand the list of rare pediatric conditions that they look for, thereby identifying more infants who can benefit from immediate care. (shrink)

Three global developments situate the context of this investigation: the increasing use of social media by organizations and their employees, the burgeoning presence of social media policies, and the heightened focus on corporate social responsibility. In this study the intersection of these trends is examined through a content analysis of 112 publicly available social media policies from the largest corporations in the world. The extent to which social media policies facilitate and/or constrain the communicative sensibilities and values associated with contemporary (...) notions of CSR is considered. Overall, findings indicate that a large majority of policies, regardless of sector or national headquarters, increasingly inhibit communicative tenets of contemporary CSR and thereby diminish employee negotiation and participation in the social responsibilities of corporations. Moreover, policies generally enact organizational communication practices that are contrary to international CSR guidelines. Findings suggest that social media policies represent a relatively unrecognized development in the institutionalization of CSR communicative norms and practices that call into question the promising affordances of social media for the inclusion of various voices in the public negotiation of what constitutes corporate social responsibility. (shrink)

In ____Maternal Ethics and Other Slave Moralities__ which includes the first extended philosophical discussion of the works of Frederick Douglass, Cynthia Willett puts forward a novel theory of ethical subjectivity that is aimed to counter prevailing pathologies of sexist, racist Eurocentric culture. Weaving together accounts of the self drawn from African-American and European philosophies, psychoanalysis, slave narratives and sociology, Willett interrogates what Hegel locates as the core of the self: the desire for.

Volume 20, Issue 3, March 2020, Page 46-50.

Recently, Hosmer (1994a) proposed a model linking right, just, and fair treatment of extended stakeholders with trust and innovation in organizations. The current study tests this model by using Victor and Cullen''s (1988) ethical work climate instrument to measure the perceptions of the right, just, and fair treatment of employee stakeholders.In addition, this study extends Hosmer''s model to include the effect of right, just, and fair treatment on employee communication, also believed to be an underlying dynamic of trust.More specifically, the (...) current study used a survey of 111 managers to test (1) whether right, just, and fair treatment influences trust, both directly as well as indirectly via communication, and (2) whether trust influences perceptions of commitment and innovation. Strong support for the study''s hypotheses and Hosmer''s (1994a) model was found. Such findings support those who argue that moral management may be good management. (shrink)

A radical new approach to humor, where traditional targets become its agents Humor is often dismissed as cruel ridicule or harmless fun. But what if laughter is a vital force to channel rage against patriarchy, Islamophobia, mass incarceration? To create moments of empathy and dialogue between #Black Lives Matter and the police? These and other such questions are at the heart of this powerful reassessment of humor. Placing theorists in conversation with comedians, Uproarious offers a full-frontal approach to the very (...) foundation of comedy and its profound political impact. Here Cynthia Willett and Julie Willett address the four major theories of humor—superiority, relief, incongruity, and social play—through the lens of feminist and game-changing comics such as Wanda Sykes, Margaret Cho, Hannah Gadsby, Hari Kondabolu, and Tig Notaro. They take a radical and holistic approach to the understanding of humor, particularly of humor deployed by those from groups long relegated to the margins and propose a powerful new understanding of humor as a force that can engender politically progressive social movements. Drawing on a range of cross-disciplinary sources, from philosophies and histories of humor to the psychology and physiology of laughter to animal studies, Uproarious offers a richer understanding of the political and cathartic potential of humor. (shrink)

The importance of personal connections and relationships, or guanxi when doing business with the Chinese is widely acknowledged amongst Western academics and business managers alike. However, aspects of guanxi-rehted behaviours in the workplace are often misunderstood by Westerners with some going so far as to equate guanxi with forms of corruption. This study extends earlier study of Tan and Snell: 2002, Journal of Business Ethics 41 (December), 361-384) in its investigation of the underlying modes of moral reasoning in ethical decisions (...) relating to aspects of guanxi, amongst Hong Kong managers. Managers' ethical judgements and underlying moral reasoning relating to a series of guanxi related behaviours were recorded. Content analysis yielded categories that correspond with categories of moral reasoning described in Kohlberg's (1969, Handbook of Socialization Theory and Research, Rand McNally, Chicago, pp. 347-480) model. As hypothesised, it was found that harsher ethical evaluations of guanxi-vehted behaviours were positively correlated with the stage of moral reasoning. The most common types of reasoning were those corresponding to Kohlberg's stages four and five which relate to moral reasoning based on law and order, and on reason rather than emotion. Stage 6, concerned with more universalistic approaches to moral reasoning, was utilised considerably less, consistent with popularly held beliefs of the relativistic nature of Chinese ethics. (shrink)

Although Gloria Anzaldúa's critical categories have steadily entered discussions in the field of philosophy, a lingering skepticism remains about her works’ ability to transcend the particularity of her lived experience. In an effort to respond to this attitude, I make Anzaldúa's corpus the center of philosophical analysis and posit that immanent to this work is a logic that lends it the unity of a critical philosophy that accounts for its concrete, multilayered character and shifting, creative force. I call this an (...) “affective logic of volverse una.” Starting with the understanding of a situated modality of all subjectivity, Anzaldúa's work exhibits a logic of three moments distinguished by states of awareness. Each state of awareness is characterized by the generative degree of the subject's responses to its conditions: critical, individuating, and expansive. Led by her late concepts of conocimiento and nepantlera, I return to her earlier works and trace Anzaldúa's innovative exploration of undoing the oppressive condition of marginal subjectivities from “La Prieta” through Borderlands/La Frontera to her final published essay “now let us shift.” I find a liberatory schema of volverse una/becoming whole that is grounded in an active receptivity of sensibility and facilitated by affective technologies for transformation. (shrink)

Chapter One The most plausible arguments for the identity of mind and body that have been advanced in this century have been for the identity of mental ...