This critical note responds to Guiaşu and Tindale’s “Logical fallacies and invasion biology,” from our perspective as ecologists and philosophers of science engaged in debates about invasion biology and invasive species. We agree that “the level of charges and dismissals” surrounding these debates might be “unhealthy” and that “it will be very difficult for dialogues to move forward unless genuine attempts are made to understand the positions being held and to clarify the terms involved.” Although they raise several important scientific, (...) conceptual, and ethical issues at the foundations of invasion biology, we believe Guiaşu and Tindale’s attempts to clarify the debate were unsuccessful. Like some other critics of the field, they tend to misrepresent invasion biology by cherry-picking and constructing “straw people,” inaccurately portraying invasion biology, and thus failing to elevate the dialogue. In this critique, we clarify areas in the invasion biology literature misrepresented by Guiaşu and Tindale. We attempt to provide a more balanced view of areas of reasonable debate within invasion biology, including disputes about empirical evidence, diverse risk attitudes, and other diverse ethical commitments. (shrink)

Using samples from the U.S. and Puerto Rico, we examine cross-cultural differences in cultural value dimensions, and relate these to act and rule utilitarian orientations, and ethical decision making of business professionals. Although these places share the same legal environment, culturally they are distinct. In addition to tests of between-group differences, a model in which utilitarian orientation mediates the influence of cultural values on ethical decisions was evaluated at the individual level of analysis. Results indicated national culture differences on three (...) cultural values, but no between-group differences on utilitarian orientations and ethical decisions. Significant indirect effects were found; act utilitarian orientation mediated the effects of two values activity orientation and universalism on ethical decision making. Implications for international management practices and business ethics are discussed. (shrink)

This discussion note addresses Caleb Hazelwood’s ‘Practice-Centered Pluralism and a Disjunctive Theory of Art’. Hazelwood advances a disjunctive definition of art on the basis of an analogy with species concept pluralism in the philosophy of biology. We recognize the analogy between species and art, we applaud attention to practice, and we are bullish on pluralism—but it is a mistake to take these as the basis for a disjunctive definition.

Nanomedicine is yielding new and improved treatments and diagnostics for a range of diseases and disorders. Nanomedicine applications incorporate materials and components with nanoscale dimensions where novel physiochemical properties emerge as a result of size-dependent phenomena and high surface-to-mass ratio. Nanotherapeutics and in vivo nanodiagnostics are a subset of nanomedicine products that enter the human body. These include drugs, biological products, implantable medical devices, and combination products that are designed to function in the body in ways unachievable at larger scales. (...) Nanotherapeutics andin vivonanodiagnostics incorporate materials that are engineered at the nanoscale to express novel properties that are medicinally useful. These nanomedicine applications can also contain nanomaterials that are biologically active, producing interactions that depend on biological triggers. Examples include nanoscale formulations of insoluble drugs to improve bioavailability and pharmacokinetics, drugs encapsulated in hollow nanoparticles with the ability to target and cross cellular and tissue membranes and to release their payload at a specific time or location, imaging agents that demonstrate novel optical properties to aid in locating micrometastases, and antimicrobial and drug-eluting components or coatings of implantable medical devices such as stents. (shrink)

A main objective of this study is to assess the opinions of 50 behavioral health patients on selective control over their behavioral and physical health information. We explored patients' preferences regarding current consent models, what health information should be shared for care and research and whether these preferences vary based on the sensitivity of health information and/or the type of provider involved. The other objective of this study was to solicit opinions of 8 behavioral health providers on patient-driven granular control (...) of health information and potential impact on care.Electronic surveys were implemented at an outpatient Behavioral Health facility that provides care for behavioral health patients with non-serious mental illnesses. The Patient Survey included questions regarding patients' demographics and about their concerns and preferences for data sharing for care and research. The Provider Survey included questions about their view on the current consent process and perceptions on barriers and facilitators to implement patient-controlled granular consent models.This novel study provides valuable preliminary data that can help guide future studies to better understand privacy choices of this underrepresented patient group. (shrink)

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the health system worldwide. The organ and tissue donation and transplantation (OTDT) system is no exception and has had to face ethical challenges related to the pandemic, such as risks of infection and resource allocation. In this setting, many Canadian transplant programs halted their activities during the first wave of the pandemic.MethodTo inform future ethical guidelines related to the COVID-19 pandemic or other public health emergencies of international concern, we conducted a (...) literature review to summarize the ethical issues.ResultsThis literature review identified three categories of ethical challenges. The first one describes the general ethical issues and challenges reported by OTDT organizations and transplantation programs, such as risks of COVID-19 transmission and infection to transplant recipients and healthcare professionals during the transplant process, risk of patient waitlist mortality or further resource strain where transplant procedures have been delayed or halted, and resource allocation. The second category describes ethical challenges related to informed consent in the context of uncertainty and virtual consent. Finally, the third category describes ethical issues related to organ allocation, such as social considerations in selecting transplant candidates.ConclusionThis literature review highlights the salient ethical issues related to OTDT during the current COVID-19 pandemic. As medical and scientific knowledge about COVID-19 increases, the uncertainties related to this disease will decrease and the associated ethical issues will continue to evolve. (shrink)

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to transform many aspects of scholarly publishing. Authors, peer reviewers, and editors might use AI in a variety of ways, and those uses might augment their existing work or might instead be intended to replace it. We are editors of bioethics and humanities journals who have been contemplating the implications of this ongoing transformation. We believe that generative AI may pose a threat to the goals that animate our work but could also be (...) valuable for achieving those goals. In the interests of fostering a wider conversation about how generative AI may be used, we have developed a preliminary set of recommendations for its use in scholarly publishing. We hope that the recommendations and rationales set out here will help the scholarly community navigate toward a deeper understanding of the strengths, limits, and challenges of AI for responsible scholarly work. (shrink)

This article discusses clinical ethics consultation (CEC), and thereby ethics support services in the Canadian context. Commonalities and differences between the three models of ethics support and CEC shared in this article are identified, set within the broader context of the Canadian healthcare system, accreditation, and professionalization of practicing healthcare ethicists.

In this paper, we explore best practices for asynchronous discussions in graduate online bioethics education. We explain that online approaches have advantages and challenges in contrast to in-person discussions. Online challenges are lack of visual or auditory cues and technical access. Advantages include extended opportunities for specific focus, thoughtful reflection, and critical review. We found no significant review of related best practices in bioethics. Our more general literature review of graduate education and online approaches, plus experience in our own bioethics (...) graduate program, suggest provisional best practices that we detail. We reason that online graduate discussion provisionally should aim for a “community of inquiry” framework that incorporates cognitive, social, and teaching “presences,” as well as a learning presence. However, we also note unresolved concerns about whether the framework sufficiently addresses learning, is complete, and captures communicative functions. Drawing further on the literature, we also suggest best practices for instructor feedback to students about their discussion performance, including that remarks should be timely and specific. Summaries from two courses in our graduate bioethics program illustrate how we implement discussion strategies. Finally, we review assessment strategies and suggest that embedded formative assessments in discussion support and demonstrate deeper learning. Limitations in generalizability include that our review targets asynchronous and text-based online discussion, our program assessments do not necessarily detail best practices, student expectations and approaches could be rather particular to our program, and specific bioethics content in principle could alter best practices. (shrink)

We are of the opinion that there is also identity between erroneous thinking and existence. Our opinion is based on the following facts.

One specific instantiation of the storm-and-stress view of adolescence is the idea that “normal” adolescence involves high-risk substance use behaviors. However, although uptake of some substance use behaviors is more common during adolescence than other life stages, it is clear that not all adolescents engage in risky substance use—and among those who do, there is much variation in emotional, behavioral, and contextual precursors of this behavior. One such set of predictors forms the internalizing pathway to substance use disorder, whereby internalizing (...) symptoms in childhood such as negative affect and anxiety set off a chain of consequences culminating in high-risk substance use in late adolescence. However, findings linking internalizing symptoms to substance use are mixed, and it is clear that this link varies across adolescents and contexts. One heretofore unanswered question is whether and how geographic location, specifically whether the adolescent lives in an urban or rural location, moderates this link. The current report is a secondary analysis of data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, in which we examined the link between internalizing symptoms in childhood and initiation of substance use through age 19. Using a multiple event process survival mixture model, we identified three trajectories of substance use initiation in adolescence: one characterized by near-complete abstinence until late adolescence, another by earlier initiation of alcohol, nicotine, and cannabis, and another by early initiation of these substances and later initiation of more hazardous drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine. Although childhood externalizing symptoms increased the risk of being in the second or third class, internalizing symptoms decreased risk when rural and non-rural adolescents were considered together. Few effects of rurality were found, but the negative relationship between internalizing at age 10 and high-risk substance use was only observed among non-rural adolescents. This finding, which was inconsistent with our initial predictions that rurality might confer higher risk for substance use, instead suggests a potentially protective effect of internalizing symptoms for engagement in risky substance use which may differ based on an adolescent’s geographical context. (shrink)

A recording or performance of a song is a cover if there is an earlier, canonical recording of the song. It can seem intuitive to think that properly appreciating a cover requires considering it in relation to the original, or at least that doing so will yield a deeper appreciation. This intuition is supported by some philosophical accounts of covers. And it is complicated by the possibility of hearing in, whereby one hears elements of the original version in the cover. (...) We argue that it can nevertheless be just as legitimate to consider a cover version on its own as it is to consider it in relation to the earlier recording that it is covering. In some cases, these two modes of appreciation will offer distinct rewards. In other cases, one mode will be substantially more rewarding than the other. The details matter, especially in complicated cases like covers of covers, but neither mode is privileged in principle. (shrink)

Cover versions form a loose but identifiable category of tracks and performances. We distinguish four kinds of covers and argue that they mark important differences in the modes of evaluation that are possible or appropriate for each: mimic covers, which aim merely to echo the canonical track; rendition covers, which change the sound of the canonical track; transformative covers, which diverge so much as to instantiate a distinct, albeit derivative song; and referential covers, which not only instantiate a distinct song, (...) but for which the new song is in part about the original song. In order to allow for the very possibility of transformative and referential covers, we argue that a cover is characterized by relation to a canonical track rather than merely by being a new instance of a song that had been recorded previously. (shrink)

Physician-researchers are bound by professional obligations stemming from both the role of the physician and the role of the researcher. Currently, the dominant models for understanding the relationship between physician-researchers' clinical duties and research duties fit into three categories: the similarity position, the difference position and the middle ground. The law may be said to offer a fourth.

Visual research methods like photography and digital storytelling are increasingly used in health and social sciences research as participatory approaches that benefit participants, researchers, and audiences. Visual methods involve a number of additional ethical considerations such as using identifiable content and ownership of creative outputs. As such, ethics committees should use different assessment frameworks to consider research protocols with visual methods. Here, we outline the limitations of ethics committees in assessing projects with a visual focus and highlight the sparse knowledge (...) on how researchers respond when they encounter ethical challenges in the practice of visual research. We propose a situated approach in relation to visual methodologies that encompasses a negotiated, flexible approach, given that ethical issues usually emerge in relation to the specific contexts of individual research projects. Drawing on available literature and two case studies, we identify and reflect on nuanced ethical implications in visual research, like tensions between aesthetics and research validity. The case studies highlight strategies developed in-situ to address the challenges two researchers encountered when using visual research methods, illustrating that some practice implications are not necessarily addressed using established ethical clearance procedures. A situated approach can ensure that visual research remains ethical, engaging, and rigorous. (shrink)

The new generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools, and especially the large language models (LLMs) of which ChatGPT is the most prominent example, have the potential to transform many aspects o...

Opposition within the organic agriculture community to a state regulatory initiative intended to close a loophole on the prohibition of stoop labor in California agriculture illuminates critical tensions around the “labor question” underpinning California's rapidly expanding organic sector. Through an exploration of the contradictions between the political economic realities of organic agriculture, the lived realities of farm workers, and the ideological framework of “agricultural exceptionalism” espoused in the organic community, this article challenges widely held assumptions that organic agriculture embodies a (...) more socially sustainable form of production. We conclude that these tensions must be confronted if any progress is to be made toward the incorporation of social justice into definitions of agro-food system sustainability. (shrink)

Potential conflicts between the roles of physicians and researchers have been described at the theoretical level in the bioethics literature (Czoli, et al., 2011). Physicians and researchers are generally in mutually distinct roles, responsible for patients and participants respectively. With increasing emphasis on integration of research into clinical settings, however, the role divide is sometimes unclear. Consequently, physician–researchers must consider and negotiate salient ethical differences between clinical– and research–based obligations (Miller et al, 1998). This paper explores the subjective experiences and (...) perspectives of 30 physician–researchers working in three Canadian paediatric settings. Drawing on qualitative interviews, it identifies ethical challenges and strategies used by physician–researchers in managing dual roles. It considers whether competing obligations could have both positive and adverse consequences for both physician–researchers and patients. Finally, we discuss how empirical work, which explores the perspectives of those engaged in research and clinical practice, can lead the way to understanding and promoting best practice. (shrink)

The nature of architecture Building Architecture and Religion The sense of the past Following the example of antiquity.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to transform many aspects of scholarly publishing. Authors, peer reviewers, and editors might use AI in a variety of ways, and those uses might augment their existing work or might instead be intended to replace it. We are editors of bioethics and humanities journals who have been contemplating the implications of this ongoing transformation. We believe that generative AI may pose a threat to the goals that animate our work but could also be (...) valuable for achieving those goals. In the interests of fostering a wider conversation about how generative AI may be used, we have developed a preliminary set of recommendations for its use in scholarly publishing. We hope that the recommendations and rationales set out here will help the scholarly community navigate toward a deeper understanding of the strengths, limits, and challenges of AI for responsible scholarly work. (shrink)

The new generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools, and especially the large language models (LLMs) of which ChatGPT is the most prominent example, have the potential to transform many aspects o...

The purpose of this study was to test whether personal commitment to community was related to political involvement in two cultural contexts: Italy and the USA. Participants were 566 adolescents (48.2% males) aged 14–19 years (M = 16 years; SD = 1.29): 311 Italians and 255 Americans. Participants filled out a self-report questionnaire. Analyses of variance revealed that American high school students reported higher levels of personal commitment to community than did their Italian peers and that many forms of political (...) involvement were significantly more common among American adolescents. Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that personal commitment to community was strongly and positively associated with involvement in political activities in both adolescent samples. Thus, fostering personal commitments to community could potentially lead youth to political engagement. (shrink)

ICAP is a theory of active learning that differentiates students’ engagement based on their behaviors. ICAP postulates that Interactive engagement, demonstrated by co‐generative collaborative behaviors, is superior for learning to Constructive engagement, indicated by generative behaviors. Both kinds of engagement exceed the benefits of Active or Passive engagement, marked by manipulative and attentive behaviors, respectively. This paper discusses a 5‐year project that attempted to translate ICAP into a theory of instruction using five successive measures: (a) teachers’ understanding of ICAP after (...) completing an online module, (b) their success at designing lesson plans using different ICAP modes, (c) fidelity of teachers’ classroom implementation, (d) modes of students’ enacted behaviors, and (e) students’ learning outcomes. Although teachers had minimal success in designing Constructive and Interactive activities, students nevertheless learned significantly more in the context of Constructive than Active activities. We discuss reasons for teachers’ overall difficulty in designing and eliciting Interactive engagement. (shrink)

In educational measurement, exploring the method of generating multiple high-quality parallel tests has become a research hotspot. One purpose of this research is to construct parallel forms item by item according to a seed test, using two proposed item selection heuristic methods [minimum parameters–information–distance method and minimum information–parameters–distance method ]. Moreover, previous research addressing test assembly issues has been limited mainly to situations in which the information curve of the item pool or seed test has a normal or skewed distribution. (...) However, in practice, the distributions of information curves for tests are diverse. These include multimodal distributions, the most common type of which is the bimodal distribution. Therefore, another main aim of this article is to extend the information curves of unimodal distributions to bimodal distributions. Thus, this study adopts simulation research to compare the results of two item, response, theory -based item matching methods using different information curve distributions for item pools or seed tests. The results show that the MPID and MIPD methods yield rather good performance in terms of both two statistical targets when the information curve has a unimodal distribution, and two new methods yield better performance than two existing methods in terms of test information functions target when the information curve has a bimodal distribution. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to identify relationship between leisure constraint negotiations and leisure activity participation through meta-analysis within the Korean context. Through this study, the inconsistent research results of previous studies are explained by comprehensively clarifying the relationship between the two variables and identifying a third variable that controls the relationship. The efforts of this project are expected to provide useful data that can be used for future research and to seek ways of increasing participation in leisure activities. (...) In order to achieve the purpose of this study, the research questions set in this study are as follows. First, what is the magnitude of the effect of the correlation coefficient between leisure constraint negotiations and leisure participation? Second, what are the variables that control the relationship between leisure constraint negotiations and leisure participation? Materials were collected by utilizing Research Information Sharing Service, DBpia, Korean studies Information Service System, and Korea Citation Index. Finally, 20 pieces of research materials were selected with a total of 6,843 participants. The conclusions drawn from the research questions set in this study are as follows. First, leisure constraint negotiations and leisure participation are in a static relationship, and their level is considerable. In other words, efforts to overcome leisure constraints increase participation in leisure activities. Second, gender, age, and type of active leisure activities are major variables that control the relationship between leisure constraint negotiations and leisure participation. Finally, the limitation of this study and future research orientation were discussed. (shrink)

Much of the focus of the published 2011 symposium that inspired this work focused on the question, “When have you reduced risk enough to move from bench/animal studies to ‘first in-human’ studies?” Building applied research ethics related to nanotherapeutics requires bench and clinical scientists to have a clear vision about how to test nanotherapeutic safety, and it is clear that there is still much to be considered at the steps before “in-human” assessment. Herein, the perspective of the bench scientist is (...) brought to bear on using in vivo and in vitro models to assess the safety of nanotherapeutics. Much of this work falls under the purview of the field of nanotoxicology that aims to understand the toxicological impact of engineered nanoscale materials. Engineered nanomaterials include a wide variety of materials that are manipulated and controlled on the nanoscale level where, typically, the nanoparticle or nanomaterial has some dimension that is less than 100 nm. (shrink)

Due to extensive product differentiation and the personalized aesthetic needs of consumers, modern enterprises need different expressions of information to attract consumers’ interest and improve their purchase intention. This study draws from the elaboration likelihood model, anchoring theory, and media richness theory to explore how the expression of advertised information can be effectively matched to the product type to enhance consumers’ purchase intention. The mediating effect of information-processing fluency and moderating effect of consumers’ personal involvement on this relationship is also (...) explored. Data from experiments and questionnaires involving 1,292 participants were analyzed. The results show that direct expression of advertised information is more suitable for advertising search products, while metaphorical expressions of advertised information are more suitable for advertising experience products. These combinations of product type and expression of advertised information can effectively improve consumers’ purchase intention. Meanwhile, the main combined effect of the product type and expression of advertised information is mediated by consumers’ information-processing fluency, and moderated by consumers’ personal involvement positively. (shrink)

In contemporary society, mental health issues have received increasing attention. Moreover, how people perceive the acoustic environment affects mental health. In religious places, the unique religious soundscape, composed of the acoustic environment and sounds, has an obvious effect on mental health. In China, Han Chinese Buddhism has a long history and is currently the religion with the largest number of believers. The soundscape of temples has always been an important component of creating a Buddhist atmosphere. For this study, questionnaires were (...) distributed to believers and tourists inside and outside several well-known Han Chinese Buddhist temples in China to analyse the relationship between evaluations of temple soundscapes and mental health and the role of religious belief-related factors in this relationship. The results indicated that for the respondents, the overall acoustic environment of Buddhist temples was significantly correlated with mental health and that a preference for three sounds in Buddhist temples, i.e., bells, wind chimes and chanting sounds, was significantly correlated with mental health. Among religious belief-related factors, attitudes toward Buddhist thought, frequency of temple visitation and purpose for visiting temples can affect the correlation between personal evaluations of temple soundscapes and mental health. For people who partially believe in Buddhist thought, people who visit Buddhist temples twice or less per year, or people who visit temples for tourism purposes, the correlations between evaluations of the overall acoustic environment and mental health are higher than for people without these religious characteristics. For people who fully believe in Buddhist thought or who visit temples neither to worship Buddha nor for tourism purposes, the correlations between the preferences for bells and wind chimes and mental health are higher than for people without these religious characteristics. For people who partially believe in Buddhist thought, the correlation between the preference for chanting and mental health is higher than for people with other attitudes toward Buddhist thought. (shrink)

1-pu. Ttang ŭi soksagim -- 2-pu. Mul ŭi norae -- 3-pu. Pulkkot ch'ŏrŏm -- 4-pu. Param ŭi hŭnjŏk.

Shang. Qiu shi lun ji -- Xia. Xu qiu shi lun ji.

PurposeThe aim of this study was to investigate and compare impulsiveness, negative emotion, cognitive function, and P300 components among gamma-hydroxybutyrate -addicted patients, heroin-dependent patients, and methadone maintenance treatment subjects.MethodsA total of 48 men including 17 GHB addicts, 16 heroin addicts, 15 MMT subjects, and 15 male mentally healthy controls were recruited. All subjects were evaluated for symptoms of depression, anxiety, impulsiveness, and cognitive function through the Patient Health Questionnaire, the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item, the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale version II, the (...) Beijing version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, the behavioral test, and event-related potential P300 detection.Results The mean scores of BIS-II in the GHB addiction group, heroin dependence group, and MMT group were significantly higher than those of the HC group. The total scores of BJ-MOCA in GHB addiction group was the worst among the four groups, followed by heroin addiction, MMT group and HC group. The response time in the GHB addiction group was the longest among the four groups, followed by the heroin addiction, MMT, and HC groups. The amplitude and latency of P300 in GHB addiction subjects were significantly lower and longer than those of the MMT group and the HC group. For the three types of addiction, the P300 amplitudes at Fz, Cz, Pz, T5, and T6 were negatively correlated with the scores of GAD-7, PHQ-9, and BIS-II; the P300 latencies were positively correlated with the response time and negatively correlated with the scores of the BJ-MoCA.ConclusionPeople with an addiction were likely to have increased impulsiveness. The cognitive function of the GHB and heroin-addicted subjects, including the heroin detoxification and the MMT groups, was severely impaired, especially for the GHB-addicted patients. The impairment manifested as abnormalities of BJ-MoCA, response time, and P300 components. (shrink)

本书收辑的40篇论述,基本包括陈康先生用中外文发表的主要学术著作。全书分两部分,前一部分是研究希腊哲学的论文,后一部分是研究一般哲学问题的论述。.

PurposeThis study investigated the impact of age and myopia on visual form perception among Chinese school-age children.MethodsThis cross-sectional study included 1,074 students with a mean age of 12.1 ± 4.7 years. The mean spherical equivalence refraction of the participants was −1.45 ± 2.07 D. All participants underwent distance visual acuity, refraction measurement and local and global visual form perception test including orientation, parallelism, collinearity, holes and color discrimination tasks.ResultsThe reaction times of emmetropes were slower than those of myopic and high (...) myopic groups on both local and global discrimination tasks. A reduction in reaction times was found with increasing age on both local and global discrimination tasks. Age was significantly associated with both local and global visual perception performance after adjusting for gender, visual acuity and SER.ConclusionsThis study revealed that both local and global visual perception improve with age among Chinese children and that myopes seem to have better visual perception than emmetropes. (shrink)