Objective: The objectives of this study are to understand the current functions, structure and operation of hospital ethics committees (HECs) in Shanghai and to facilitate their improvement. Methods: (1) A questionnaire survey, (2) interviews with secretaries and (3) on-site document reviews of HECs in Shanghai were used in the study, which surveyed 33 hospitals. Results: In Shanghai, 57.56% of the surveyed hospitals established HECs from 1998 to 2005. Most HECs used bioethical review of research involving human subjects as well as (...) bioethical review or consultation regarding medical care services and administrative decision- making. Of the surveyed HECs, 14.3% did not provide any formal bioethical training to the HECs’ members and many HECs had no standard operating procedures. Some HECs had no clear definition of what was “conflict of interest” that should be considered by the HECs, while 44.4% of the HECs did not perform continuing review. Discussion: After the issues of related national regulations, more and more hospitals established HECs in Shanghai, but the functions of HECs need to be further developed and formal training on bioethics should be provided to HEC members. To assure the independence and good performance of HECs, the conflict of interest procedure, the standard operating procedures and bioethical review should be improved. Conclusion: HECs in Shanghai had developed in the preceding 10 years and they played great roles in protecting the rights and welfare of human subjects and patients; some areas need improvement. (shrink)

Background and ObjectivesSchool bullying threatens the health of children and adolescents, such as mental health disorders, social deviant behaviors, suicidal behaviors, and coping difficulties. The present study aims to address prevalence rates of both traditional and cyber school bullying perpetration, and the associations between self-control, parental involvement, experiencing conflicts with parents, experiencing interparental conflict, and risk behaviors, and school bullying perpetration among Chinese children and adolescents.MethodThis study used data from a national representative school bullying survey among children and adolescents from (...) all grades in seven cities in China. Negative binomial regression was used to estimate the effects of these predictive factors on traditional and cyber school bullying perpetration, respectively. Seven control variables were included, such as gender, boarding school, family socioeconomic status, and parents’ education levels.ResultsThe sample comprised 52% female, 18% at boarding school, 70% of the participants’ academic performance was average or above. Approximately 17.3% of the participants reported participating in traditional school bullying against their peers, and 7.8% perpetrated cyberbullying behaviors. Also, after controlling sociodemographic characteristics and high self-control, parental involvement reduced the likelihood of traditional and cyberbullying perpetrating. Experiencing interparental conflict and risk behavior was significantly associated with increased perpetration of traditional and cyber school bullying. We found that having a conflict with parents was significantly associated with cyberbullying perpetration.ImplicationsFindings have implications for practice. Anti-bullying intervention programs targeting this population should consider these factors. For example, school administrators may develop school programs involving parents in the efforts and interventions workshops improving children and adolescents’ levels of self-control. Limitations are also discussed. (shrink)

Objectives The objectives of the study are to understand the current practice of informed consent in medical research in public hospitals in Shanghai, and to share our views with other countries, especially developing countries. Methods In the study, 145 consent forms (CFs) of the selected research projects in eight public hospitals with ethics committees in Shanghai were audited, and the principle investigators (PIs) of these research projects and 40 student subjects who had participated in clinical drug tests were surveyed by (...) questionnaires. Results The CFs of medical researches in public hospitals with ethics committees in Shanghai were generally acceptable. However, there were some defects in the CFs. Although most of the surveyed PIs had correct recognition of informed consent, some processes of informed consent were not in accordance with generally accepted requirements. A large number of the PIs considered the greatest difficulty with informal consent was lack of correct recognition of subjects or legally authorised representatives on medical research. Discussion Informed consent in medical research should consider the research ethics, the background of potential subjects, the local resources and culture of medical research. In addition, special protection is needed for student subjects in informed consent as well as efforts for building and restoring the public's trust in biomedical research. Conclusion The informed consent in Shanghai's public hospitals with ethics committees was generally acceptable and the achievement of adequate informed consent is influenced by many factors. (shrink)

Emergency online education has been adopted worldwide due to coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Prior research regarding online learning predominantly focused on the perception of parents, teachers, and students in tertiary education, while younger children’s perspectives have rarely been examined. This study investigated how family, school, and individual factors would be associated with primary school students’ satisfaction, perceived effectiveness, and preference in online learning during COVID-19. A convenient sample of 781 Hong Kong students completed an anonymous online survey from June to (...) October 2020. Logistic regression was conducted for 13 potential factors. Results indicated that only 57% of students were satisfied with their schools’ online learning arrangement and 49.6% regarded the online learning as an effective learning mode. Only 12.8% of students preferred online learning, while 67.2% of students preferred in-person schooling. Multiple analyses suggested that teacher–student interaction during online classes was positively associated with students’ satisfaction, perceived effectiveness, and preferences in online learning. Compared to grades 1–2 students, grades 3–6 students perceived more effectiveness and would prefer online learning. Happier schools were more likely to deliver satisfying and effective online education. Students who reported less happiness at school would prefer online learning, and students who reported less happiness at home would be less satisfied with online learning and reflected lower effectiveness. Teachers are encouraged to deliver more meaningful interactions to students and offer extra support to younger children during online classes. Primary schools and parents are encouraged to create a healthy and pleasant learning environment for children. The government may consider building up happy schools in the long run. The study findings are instrumental for policymakers, institutions, educators, and researchers in designing online education mechanisms. (shrink)

« Apprendre » ( xue 學) se trouve être le tout premier mot des Entretiens associés à Confucius dont la compilation date d’il y a deux mille ans. Avons-nous depuis lors appris, voire commencé à devenir plus humains? L’histoire des temps modernes, jusqu’aux atrocités dont nous sommes témoins aujourd’hui, pointent vers une réponse négative. Serait-ce donc que l’enseignement confucéen avait raison de se concentrer sur le processus d’apprendre à faire de soi un être humain? Et avait-il quelque justification à placer (...) au cœur de ce processus le continuum entre l’homme et le cosmos, ainsi que la transmission entre générations humaines (notamment à travers le culte des ancêtres, les rites funéraires et la piété filiale)? Enfin, une telle conception de l’humain est-elle en droit d’être au fondement d’un humanisme confucéen et d’une universalité chinoise? Telles sont les questions qui sous-tendent l’exploration de sources textuelles de la Chine ancienne proposée ici. (shrink)

« Apprendre » ( xue 學) se trouve être le tout premier mot des Entretiens associés à Confucius dont la compilation date d’il y a deux mille ans. Avons-nous depuis lors appris, voire commencé à devenir plus humains? L’histoire des temps modernes, jusqu’aux atrocités dont nous sommes témoins aujourd’hui, pointent vers une réponse négative. Serait-ce donc que l’enseignement confucéen avait raison de se concentrer sur le processus d’apprendre à faire de soi un être humain? Et avait-il quelque justification à placer (...) au cœur de ce processus le continuum entre l’homme et le cosmos, ainsi que la transmission entre générations humaines (notamment à travers le culte des ancêtres, les rites funéraires et la piété filiale)? Enfin, une telle conception de l’humain est-elle en droit d’être au fondement d’un humanisme confucéen et d’une universalité chinoise? Telles sont les questions qui sous-tendent l’exploration de sources textuelles de la Chine ancienne proposée ici. (shrink)

Background: Although ethics consultation has been introduced to clinical practice for many years, the results of empirical studies to evaluate the effectiveness of ethics consultation are still controversial. The design of randomised controlled trials is considered the best research design to evaluate the effect of a clinical practice on the outcomes of interests. In order to understand the effects of ethics consultation, we conducted this search for studies with the design of randomised controlled trials to evaluate ethics consultation.Objective: To provide (...) an integrated review of studies with the design of randomised controlled trials to evaluate the effectiveness of ethics consultation.Methods: PubMed was used to search for studies using the randomised controlled trial design to evaluate the effectiveness of ethics consultation. The search term used was “ethics consultation”. The selection criterion was limited to “randomised controlled trial”.Results: Four articles that met both search criteria were retrieved. One of these articles reported a study that did not actually use the design of a randomised controlled trial and is excluded from the following discussion.Conclusions: To apply randomised controlled trials to evaluate the effectiveness of ethics consultation is extremely difficult as long as two issues are not resolved: the standardisation of ethics consultation and a placebo for ethics consultation to eliminate the placebo effect. Thus, the results generated by the design of randomised controlled trials are always problematic. Furthermore, as long as the two issues exist, the results generated by the design of quantitative research methods always pose problems. (shrink)

We develop and apply a multi-dimensional conception of explanatory depth towards a comparative analysis of inflationary and bouncing paradigms in primordial cosmology. Our analysis builds on earlier work due to Azhar and Loeb (2021) that establishes initial condition fine-tuning as a dimension of explanatory depth relevant to debates in contemporary cosmology. We propose dynamical fine-tuning and autonomy as two further dimensions of depth in the context of problems with instability and trans-Planckian modes that afflict bouncing and inflationary approaches respectively. In (...) the context of the latter issue, we argue that the recently formulated trans-Planckian censorship conjecture leads to a trade-off for inflationary models between dynamical fine-tuning and autonomy. We conclude with the suggestion that explanatory preference with regard to the different dimensions of depth is best understood in terms of differing attitudes towards heuristics for future model building. (shrink)

This study examines the educational policy related to the inclusion of ethnic minority population in the contemporary China. It has undergone three stages of the educational policy transformation, including the beginning, development and perfection stages. It is characterized by the steadiness, caution, rapidity, quality improvement, standardization and quality. Through implementing the educational policy of the inclusion of ethnic minority population, it has made retrogress and achievements, which has played a positive role in national integration, maintaining national unity and regional stability, (...) improving the academic level and cross-cultural ability of minority students, and sharing educational resources. However, in current China’s education context, the implementation of education policy is faced with some prominent problems, such as the marginalized educational identity, non-communicative education, relative separation of systems and serious cultural barriers, relative emphasis on explicit education. Therefore, it suggested to construct a new integrative and open ethnic education system, strengthen the consciousness of the united integrated education, and enhancing the bi-directionality of ethnic integration. (shrink)

Background: With the coming of the Industrial Revolution, the levels of pollution grow significantly. This Technological development contributed to the worsening of shortness breath problems in great shape. especially in infants and children. There are many shortness breath diseases that infants and children face in their lives. Shortness of breath is one of a very serious symptom in children and infants and should never be ignored. Objectives: Along these lines, the main goal of this expert system is to help physician (...) in diagnosing and describe some common causes of shortness of breath in infants and children by diagnosing their cases through our expert system. Moreover, this system which we are presenting will give patient the appropriate diagnosis of disease and the treatment required. Methods: In this paper the strategy of the expert system for diagnosing a number of the existed shortness of breath in infants and children diseases such as (Asthma , Bronchiolitis, Viral Pneumonia, cough, Shortness of breath' dyspnea ', Epiglottitis, Croup, ABSCESS in the tonsil 'peritonsillar abscess', Bronchitis, Viral Bronchitis, Wheezing, sudden infant death syndrome 'SIDS' ) is introduced, an overview about the shortness of breath in children and infants diseases are delineated, the cause of diseases are sketched and the treatment of disease whenever conceivable is given . SL5 Object Expert System language was utilized for designing and implementing the proposed expert system. Results: The proposed shortness of breath in children and infants diseases diagnosis expert system was estimated by Medical students and they were satisfied with its result. Conclusions: The Proposed expert system is very useful for Respiratory physician, pediatrician, recently graduated physician, and for children's parents with shortness of breath problem. (shrink)

This study explores how China’s education responses to COVID-19 from a perspective of policy analysis. Specifically, it involves building an educational policy system for COVID-19 to examine educational governance framework, school management and teaching, policies for teachers during the epidemic. The education policy during the epidemic has achieved positive results. Those results aim to ensure the physical and mental health of teachers and students, ensure the supply of epidemic prevention materials and educational resources, ensure the quality of students' learning, and (...) enhance the application ability of teachers' teaching technology. The process of policy changes and effects of policy implementation have been examined to analyze how China’s education responses to COVID-19. The characteristics and experience of China's education policy in response to the epidemic concentrate on forming a governance system under the centralized and unified leadership of the Communist Party of China, building a pattern in which families and schools cooperate closely to promote the smooth development of education and teaching, transforming from an emergency substitute during the crisis into an important motivation to promote the transformation of education paradigm, and paying great attention to remote and poor areas and disadvantaged student groups. (shrink)

This study examines Chinese faculty ethical philosophy from a historical perspective. Historical perspective on Chinese faculty ethical philosophy embraces three major periods, including Ch...

This study explores the type-based vocational education system from the perspective of China. General education and vocational education are equal types of education in status, but not based on different levels of education in China. Specifically, the connotation of vocational education as type-based education is mainly embodied in ‘three directions’. The outstanding problems of vocational education as a type-based education include ‘four aspects’. Vocational education as a type-based education reform path is considered as ‘four reforms’. We should strengthen management, improve (...) the comprehensive quality of vocational college students and make clear the direction and explore the new path of reform and development of vocational colleges. In addition, we need to optimize investment and make innovations in the system and mechanism of funding for China’s vocational education. (shrink)

This study explores the macro education policy design on the vocational education system for the new generation of migrant workers in China. The content system of vocational education, the...

Public policies are designed to have an impact on particular societies, yet policy-oriented computer models and simulations often focus more on articulating the policies to be applied than on realistically rendering the cultural dynamics of the target society. This approach can lead to policy assessments that ignore crucial social contextual factors. For example, by leaving out distinctive moral and normative dimensions of cultural contexts in artificial societies, estimations of downstream policy effectiveness fail to account for dynamics that are fundamental in (...) human life and central to many public policy challenges. In this paper, we supply evidence that incorporating morally salient dimensions of a culture is critically important for producing relevant and accurate evaluations of social policy when using multi-agent artificial intelligence models and simulations. (shrink)

Managers face an ethical dilemma in the allocation of scarce resources to corporate social responsibility because the underlying managerial incentives behind such CSR spending can range from pure altruism to complete financial orientation. Despite the importance of the managerial role in implementing CSR, prior studies generally have treated the role of managers as an exogenous factor. This study builds on recent studies on the managerial characteristics in studies on CSR by examining how managerial efficiency influences the outcomes of CSR. Using (...) a newly developed measure of managerial efficiency, we find that, on average, managerial efficiency is positively associated with a subsequent change in corporate social performance, although the association is weak in the level of total CSP. We find that efficient managers are more likely to engage in the product-related CSR that directly connects to corporate financial performance but are less likely to engage in environment-related CSR. We also find that CSP is positively associated with CFP with efficient managers. Our findings contribute to management and other stakeholders’ understanding of the association of CSR to its outcomes, CSP and/or CFP, which is hinged by the indispensable moderating role of managerial efficiency. (shrink)

The question of whether knowledge is definable in terms of belief, which has played an important role in epistemology for the last 50 years, is studied here in the framework of epistemic and doxastic logics. Three notions of definability are considered: explicit definability, implicit definability, and reducibility, where explicit definability is equivalent to the combination of implicit definability and reducibility. It is shown that if knowledge satisfies any set of axioms contained in S5, then it cannot be explicitly defined in (...) terms of belief. S5 knowledge can be implicitly defined by belief, but not reduced to it. On the other hand, S4.4 knowledge and weaker notions of knowledge cannot be implicitly defined by belief, but can be reduced to it by defining knowledge as true belief. It is also shown that S5 knowledge cannot be reduced to belief and justification, provided that there are no axioms that involve both belief and justification. (shrink)

Theories of the liberal tradition have relied on independence as a norm of personhood. Feminist theorists such as Eva Kittay in Love's Labor have been instrumental in critiquing normative independence. I explore the role of corporeal vulnerability in Kittay's account of personhood, developing a comparison to the role it plays in Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan. Kittay's crucial contribution in Love's Labor is that once we acknowledge the facts of corporeal vulnerability, we must not only acknowledge but also affirm dependency in a (...) genuinely inclusive affirmation of personhood. While endorsing Kittay's “dependency critique,” I discover difficulties that beleaguer Kittay's development of new norms of personhood. I trace these to a dependency of Kittay's account on a crucial premise of the liberal model it resists. I argue that in order to affirm dependency in a manner that departs more thoroughly from the criticized aspects of liberal personhood, we must cease to position it in a dichotomy of power and vulnerability. I suggest that attending to the corporeality of vulnerability can aid us in developing the terms of a discourse affirming relational personhood while undermining that dichotomy. (shrink)

Food images are useful stimuli for the study of cognitive processes as well as eating behavior. To enhance rigor and reproducibility in task-based research, it is advantageous to have stimulus sets that are publicly available and well characterized. Food Folio by Columbia Center for Eating Disorders is a publicly available set of 138 images of Western food items. The set was developed for the study of eating disorders, particularly for use in tasks that capture eating behavior characteristic of these illnesses. (...) It contains foods that are typically eaten, as well as those typically avoided, by individuals with eating disorders. Each image has now been rated across 17 different attributes by a large general United States population sample via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Ratings included subjective attributes as well as estimates of nutrient content. Each participant rated a subset of stimulus set food items on all 17 dimensions. Additional description of the image set is provided in terms of physical image information and accurate nutritional information. Correlations between subjective ratings were calculated and an exploratory factor analysis and exploratory cluster analysis completed. Outcomes of the factor analysis suggested foods may be described along three latent factors of healthiness, tastiness, and umami taste; the cluster analysis highlighted five distinct clusters of foods varying on these same dimensions. Descriptive outcomes indicated that the stimulus set includes a range of foods that vary along multiple dimensions and thus is likely to be useful in addressing various research questions surrounding eating behavior and cognition in healthy populations, as well as in those with eating disorders. The provision of comprehensive descriptive information allows for stimulus selection that is optimized for a given research question and promotes strong inference. (shrink)

This article isolates ten prepositions, which constitute the undercurrent paradigm of contemporary discourse of health disease and medicine. Discussion of the interrelationship between those prepositions leads to a systematic refutation of this paradigm. An alternative set is being forwarded. The key notions of the existing paradigm are that health is the natural condition of humankind and that disease is a deviance from that nature. Natural things are harmonious and healthy while human made artifacts are coercive interference with natural balance. It (...) is suggested that the current paradigm is influenced by the world of finances and by instrumental reason. The alternative model suggests that human nature cannot be delineated. Humans fashion their own selves and nature by artificial means, medicine among them. The article discusses the implications of the paradigm adapted in various scholarly and popular debates such as the use of sex hormones for contraception, the care of the elderly, holistic medicine and distributive justice in health care. Medicine is not an isolated or a privileged realm. There is no unique entitlement to health care. It is always part of a broader agenda of social values and institutions. A open view of human societies, values and practices as they are situated within concrete material conditions is the platform required for an integrative and creative discourse of health care. (shrink)

Adaptation to climate change impacts is a key research topic in business ethics that poses substantial implications on the good lives of human beings. The commercial port sector is a highly relevant study focus with its pivotal roles in supply chains and international trade. Hence, it is important to investigate whether the port planning system and practice is appropriate in tackling climate change impacts. But beforehand, we must thoroughly understand the attitude and behaviors of port planners and operators on ports’ (...) climate adaptation planning. Through a survey towards 21 ports in Canada, the paper investigates the attitude and behaviors of port planners and operators on ports’ climate adaptation planning. Towards the end, we propose a new approach so as to enable port stakeholders to carry out climate adaptation planning effectively. The paper offers important insight to researchers to investigate the ways in developing effective climate adaptation plans and practice for ports and other business sectors. (shrink)

Extended reality devices provide users with unprecedented immersive and hybrid perceptual experiences, and users will act their bodies according to the information perceived. This shows that visual perception plays a crucial role in the formation and shaping of self-perception and spatial position. Users have a strong perceptual experience of their physical presence and self-perception in the real world as a result of their avatar perspective based on visual perception in a virtual hybrid environment, as is issued by Chalmers in his (...) "Mirror Argument". However, users can still clearly differentiate their self and spatial experience between virtual and reality. To refute Chalmers' argument regarding perceptual experience in virtual reality, this article proposes a thought experiment called "Mary's Room in the Virtual Reality World" based on the experimental evidence of neuroscience. Finally, a possible future solution to this dilemma is presented. (shrink)

Background Whistleblowing is an action that particularly requires moral courage. Understanding the relationship between nurses’ levels of moral courage and their whistleblowing approaches is important for reducing adverse situations in healthcare services. Objectives This study aims to understand and analyze the relationship between nurses’ levels of moral courage and their whistleblowing approaches. Research design This is a descriptive and correlational study. Methods The study sample consists of 582 nurses actively working in a province in northwest Türkiye. Research data were collected (...) using an Information Form, the Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale, and the Whistleblowing Scale. Ethical considerations Ethical approval from the ethics committee, institutional permission, and informed consent from the participants were obtained for data collection. Findings Nurses were found to perceive their moral courage as high, and their whistleblowing levels were at a moderate level. There was a significant and moderate relationship between participants’ levels of moral courage and whistleblowing levels ( p <.05). Conclusions The findings emphasize the importance of promoting moral courage and creating an appropriate environment for exposing ethical violations. This study can contribute to the development of strategies to enhance nurses’ moral courage and foster a more ethical working environment in healthcare services. (shrink)

Plato’s doctrine of the ideal state is the first form of political philosophy in the written history for European thought. The influence of Plato on the formation of political philosophy cannot be overestimated, since its further development in one way or another was based on the discourse and methodology that was set by his dialogues. This study aims to identify common discourses and dialectical foundations of the most influential modern schools of political philosophy converging in the ideas of Plato. Also, (...) the study is aimed at identifying the main forms in which the philosophical ideas of Plato function in modern political philosophy in an explicit and implicit way. The contribution of the research and its novelty lies in the disclosure of the implicitly immanent features that connect political philosophy with the ideas of Plato as its primary source. (shrink)

Venneman and colleagues argue that “do not resuscitate” (DNR) is problematic and should be replaced by “allow natural death” (AND). Their argument is flawed. First, while end-of-life discussions should be as positive as possible, they cannot and should not sidestep painful but necessary confrontations with morality. Second, while DNR can indeed be nonspecific and confusing, AND merely replaces one problematic term with another. Finally, the study’s results are not generalisable to the populations of physicians and working nurses and certainly do (...) not support the authors’ claim that there is a movement to replace DNR with AND. (shrink)