This study aimed to understand the expressions of fear in the journeys of health professionals who worked in the confrontation of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19), in the city of Manaus, in the Brazilian Western Amazon. This is an exploratory qualitative study that adopts interpretive description as a method to generate informed knowledge responsive to the needs of the practice. We included 56 participants, comprising 23 health managers and 33 health workers (middle and higher level) of different professional categories. The results (...) revealed three circles of experience: (1) knowledge and professional experience in dealing with the disease (unknown–known–experienced); (2) the growing proximity to death and loss (predicted–witnessed–suffered); and (3) the involvement and proximity to whatever affects the individual, their emotions, and personal transformations in the face of the threat (the collective, the neighbor, and oneself). Our results suggest that health professionals who worked during the COVID‐19 pandemic in Manaus experienced insecurity, dread, and fear, illustrating the complexity of developing their activities in the front line of care and management during the different phases of the pandemic. A contribution of the study is precisely that of capturing this complexity, which suggests the impossibility of analyzing fear only in its simple manifestation, or in each circle of experience. (shrink)

The focus of this paper is one of James Prescott Joule’s scientific contributions: the laws of heat production by electric currents in conductors. In 1841, the 22 years old Joule published a paper with the title “On the heat evolved by metallic conductors of electricity, and in the cells of a battery during electrolysis” where he presented an experimental study of that phenomenon and proposed two laws that were allegedly supported by his trials. On closer inspection, both his laboratory work (...) and his inferences can be challenged. The emphasis of this article is an attempt to understand Joule’s experimental undertaking, its highpoints and shortcomings, by a detailed analysis of this specific episode and by studying the precedents of his work and subsequent advancements. It is possible to point out several serious deficiencies of that investigation, and Joule’s contemporaries, such as Edmond Becquerel and Heinrich Lenz, did criticize some of his flaws and undertook new experiments to provide a sound basis for those laws. Besides providing a historical examination of that specific episode, this article uses this case study to tackle some features of the nature of science that may contribute to scientific education. (shrink)

Es una obra colegiada en homenaje al doctor Jorge Alberto Silva que reúne los trabajos de juristas que cultivan diversas ramas de la ciencia jurídica. Este libro, además de numeroso artículos dedicados al análisis y exposición de casos sobre derecho internacional, el lector encontrará que la filosofía del derecho, la teoría general del derecho, la teoría de la argumentación, así como la teoría de la constitución, convergen en los trabajos que componen este extenso volumen y dan como resultado un (...) texto transdisciplinario, complejo e integral de gran valor académico. (shrink)

Background: Demand for organisational ethics capacity is growing in health organisations, particularly among managers. The role of clinical ethicists in, and perspective on, organisational ethics has not been well described or documented in the literature. Objective: To describe clinical ethicists’ perspectives on organisational ethics issues in their hospitals, their institutional role in relation to organisational ethics, and their perceived effectiveness in helping to address organisational ethics issues. Design and Setting: Qualitative case study involving semi-structured interviews with 18 clinical ethicists across (...) 13 health organisations in Toronto, Canada. Results: From the clinical ethicists’ perspective, the most pressing organisational ethics issues in their organisations are: resource allocation, staff moral distress linked to the organisation’s moral climate, conflicts of interest, and clinical issues with a significant organisational dimension. Clinical ethicists were consulted in particular on issues related to staff moral distress and clinical issues with an organisational dimension. Some ethicists described being increasingly consulted on resource allocation, conflicts of interest, and other corporate decisions. Many clinical ethicists felt they lacked sufficient knowledge and understanding of organisational decision-making processes, training in organisational ethics, and access to organisational ethics tools to deal effectively with the increasing demand for organisational ethics support. Conclusion: Growing demand for organisational ethics expertise in healthcare institutions is reshaping the role of clinical ethicists. Effectiveness in organisational ethics entails a re-evaluation of clinical ethics training to include capacity building in organisational ethics and organisational decision-making processes as a complement to traditional clinical ethics education. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: In this article, we intend to address the role of memory and narrative in the constitution of personal identity, based on Alice Munro’s short story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” and the theoretical concepts of Paul Ricoeur (especially in Oneself as Another). This movement will allow us to underscore the idea that, contrary to what part of the analytical literature on identity and narrative has held, it is not just what we might call self-narrative that plays a role (...) in maintaining personal identity. Instead, we recover the Ricoeurian idea of a network of narratives or tangled of stories, in which self- and hetero-narratives are entangled, thus providing support to the identities it captures. (shrink)

Médecins Sans Frontières is not morally required to continue providing the same therapeutic and preventative interventions for lead poisoning in Nigeria in the face of conditions that negatively impact on the achievement of their objectives. Nevertheless, Médecins Sans Frontières may have reasons to revise their objectives and adopt different interventions or methods.

La admirable riqueza cultural y artística del Renacimiento esconde una desoladora miseria y aquella "edad de la abundancia" contrasta con una inmensa pobreza. Lejos de ser una broma o una pesadilla, la celebrada Utopía de Tomás Moro fue antes que nada un desafío insoslayable, pues proponía que ninguna sociedad merece tal nombre si tolera la miseria de un solo pobre. Rico y pobre explora la cuestión en ese libro de 1516 y en otros del escritor londinense para concluir con un (...) esbozo de su vida a la luz de la pobreza como virtud indispensable y libertadora. He aquí un hombre afortunado que no fue indiferente ante el infortunio de tantos y que vio en la humanitas la virtud por excelencia que lleva a una constante atención y cuidado del prójimo. Inspirado por un cambio de actitud en su época, así como por su fe cristiana y la mejor tradición estoica, mostró una robusta preocupación sobre el tema subrayando el valor social que debe tener toda riqueza, tanto a nivel estatal como individual, destacando la grave obligación cívica de los ricos y la necesidad que tienen todos, ricos y pobres, de empeñarse en la práctica de cierto desprendimiento y generosidad si no quieren mermar su propia humanidad y fallecer en su avaricia. La percepción de la miseria había cambiado de tal manera que su remedio ya no podía estar en una u otra limosna en plazas e iglesias, sino en la acción bien pensada y perentoria de todo gobierno que se tenga por justo. Sir Tomás Moro, privilegiado desde la cuna y seguro en su trabajo profesional, vio la pobreza de tantos como un desastre social, pero uno que, al mismo tiempo, debería llevar a todo ser humano a ver en el desprendimiento y generosidad una excelencia o virtud que alumbra la "otra" libertad, y tan íntima y valiosa que en su caso brilló aun en la prisión y ante el horror de una muerte injusta y atroz." -- Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Through ten case studies by international specialists, this book investigates the circulation and production of scientific knowledge between 1750 and 1945 in the fields of agriculture, astronomy, botany, cartography, medicine, statistics, and zoology. The book will interest scholars and undergraduate and graduate students concerned with the connections between the history of science, imperial history, and global history.

In May 2021, when the Delta variant of SARS-CoV2 was wreaking havoc in India, the Australian Federal Government banned its citizens and residents who were there from coming back to Australia for 14 days on penalty of fines or imprisonment. These measures were justified on the grounds of protecting the broader Australian public from potentially importing the Delta strain, which officials feared would then seed a local outbreak. Those Australians stranded in India, and their families and communities back home, claimed (...) that they were abandoned by Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government. This case—along with other barriers used as part of border control measures in the name of public health—raises the following question: is it ever morally permissible for a state to ban its citizens and residents from entering their own country during a pandemic? I conclude that it’s impermissible. I argue that persons have a right of entry that should be understood as a security right. This security right should be non-derogable because it’s a foundational good that is necessary for life-planning purposes. Moreover, it is a right that people should be able to rely upon absolutely, even during pandemics. At the very least, should someone believe that there are rare exceptions to the right of entry on public health grounds, governments have a duty—grounded in the principle of reciprocity—to support those who are temporarily denied entry. In the case of Australians stranded in India, I will argue that the Australian Federal Government failed on all accounts. (shrink)

This paper explores the notion of reciprocity in the context of active pulmonary and laryngeal tuberculosis treatment and related control policies and practices. We seek to do three things: First, we sketch the background to contemporary global TB care and suggest that poverty is a key feature when considering the treatment of TB patients. We use two examples from TB care to explore the role of reciprocity: isolation and the use of novel TB drugs. Second, we explore alternative means of (...) justifying the use of reciprocity through appeal to different moral and political theoretical traditions. We suggest that each theory can be used to provide reasons to take reciprocity seriously as an independent moral concept, despite any other differences. Third, we explore general meanings and uses of the concept of reciprocity, with the primary intention of demonstrating that it cannot be simply reduced to other more frequently invoked moral concepts such as beneficence or justice. We argue that reciprocity can function as a mid-level principle in public health, and generally, captures a core social obligation arising once an individual or group is burdened as a result of acting for the benefit of others. We conclude that while more needs to be explored in relation to the theoretical justification and application of reciprocity, sufficient arguments can be made for it to be taken more seriously as a key principle within public health ethics and bioethics more generally. (shrink)

The concept of dignity has occasioned a robust conversation in recent healthcare scholarship. When viewed as a whole, research on dignity in healthcare has engaged each of the four bioethical principles popularized by Beauchamp and Childress, but has paid the least attention to beneficence. In this paper, we look at dignity and beneficence. We focus on the dignity promotion component of a model of dignity derived from a grounded theory study. After describing the study and presenting a précis of the (...) resulting model, we review the principle of beneficence and look at the ways in which the notion of dignity promotion can be used to complement our understanding of this principle. Specifically, we explore what we can learn from dignity promotion about the relational nature of beneficence in healthcare and how dignity promotion can be marshaled to help address the epistemological quandary of soft paternalism. (shrink)

Resumen: El presente documento tiene por objeto indagar en las publicaciones académicas de dos saberes: la filosofía y la literatura. A partir de allí, se identificó la influencia de las ideas del filósofo Slavoj Žižek en esos documentos -artículos y libros-. Esta revisión se centró en dos países de la región latinoamericana tal como lo son Chile y Perú. Se revisaron las producciones académicas que hacen menciones a las hipotesis del esloveno trazando un recorrido histórico que permite identificar cual es (...) el año en que las ideas comenzaron a ingresar a estos países y el contexto teórico-escritural en que se incluyeron, destacando en Chile el de las ciencias sociales y en Perú el del análisis literario. Debido a la falta de investigaciones de este tipo, este artículo pretende actuar como material inaugurador de futuras investigaciones enfocadas en el estudio del impacto de las ideas del filósofo oriundo de Eslovenia en las producciones locales. Palabras Clave : Filosofía; Literatura; Chile; Perú; Latinoamérica; Slavoj Žižek: The present document aims to investigate the academic publications of two knowledge: philosophy and literature. From there, the influence of the ideas of the philosopher Slavoj Žižek on those documents - articles and books - was identified. This review focused on two countries in the Latin American region such as Chile and Peru. The academic productions that mention the Slovenian's hypothesis were reviewed, tracing a historical route that allows identifying which is the year in which the ideas began to enter these countries and the theoretical-scriptural context in which they were included, highlighting in Chile the social sciences and in Peru the literary analysis. Due to the lack of research of this type, this article intends to act as inaugural material for future research focused on the study of the impact of the ideas of the philosopher from Slovenia on local productions. Keywords: Philosophy; Literature; Chile; Peru; Latin America; Slavoj Žižek. (shrink)

The natural instinct for members of the Committee on Publication Ethics, which now number almost 12,200, as well as academia, is to assume that this organization works under strict and clearly defined ethical parameters, with a solid vision, and an independent mandate that is not influenced by power, think tanks, or partisan interests. Naturally, whistle-blowing and science shaming are not practices that one would usually associate with an ethics organization like COPE, because they involve ethically and morally questionable practices. Despite (...) this, ethical borders have become blurred between the objectives of Retraction Watch and PubPeer, two self-moderated science watchdogs that rely heavily on these questionable practices, in their efforts to grow and survive, and the values espoused by COPE. A Retraction Watch post, in which the former COPE Chair, Virginia Barbour, made a claim of apparent harassment, is the most striking example of the dangers when collaboration may take place between science-shaming websites, and an ethics organization, COPE. These bonds appear to have been in development for a number of years already, with the inclusion of Elizabeth Wager, the former COPE Chair, as a director of The Center for Science Integrity Inc., Retraction Watch’s parent organization. Retraction Watch was financed by, among other groups, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, whose leader, John Arnold, an ex-Enron trader, declared a “war on bad science”, which may naturally include the destruction of aspects of science as well. Retraction Watch embraces several infamous pseudonymous personas under the broad umbrella of freedom of speech, liaising thereby with PubPeer. There is no doubt that errors in the literature need correcting, but this apparent connection with COPE raises questions about the basic ethical foundation of this relationship. Are scientists to embrace this bond between COPE and science watchdogs and pseudonymous whistle-blowers as the new normal in the correction of the scientific literature? This opinion piece puts forward arguments why the author believes that the ethical compass of COPE has become skewed. (shrink)

Powers and Faden argue that social justice ‘is concerned with securing and maintaining the social conditions necessary for a sufficient level of well-being in all of its essential dimensions for everyone’ (2006: 50). Moreover, social justice is concerned with the ‘achievement of well-being, not the freedom or capability to achieve well-being’ (p. 40). Although Powers and Faden note that an agent alone cannot achieve well-being without the necessary social conditions of life (e.g. equal civil liberties and basic material resources, such (...) as food and shelter), it seems that achievement requires that an agent actually pursue the six dimensions of well-being. In this article, I question the extent to which an individual has an obligation to achieve well-being, even if he or she would choose to do otherwise. For example, can an agent choose to forgo being healthy even if all the social conditions are met in her life, thereby choosing to not achieve well-being? It remains unclear how the dimension of self-determination coheres with the remaining five dimensions of well-being and the extent of society’s obligations toward an individual’s achievement of well-being, even in those instances when society’s actions may go against an individual’s right to self-determination. (shrink)

IntroductionTranscranial magnetic stimulation is a consolidated procedure for the treatment of depression, with several meta-analyses demonstrating its efficacy. Theta-burst stimulation is a modification of TMS with similar efficacy and shorter session duration. The geriatric population has many comorbidities and a high prevalence of depression, but few clinical trials are conducted specifically for this age group. TBS could be an option in this population, offering the advantages of few side effects and no pharmacological interactions. Therefore, our aim is to investigate the (...) efficacy of TBS in geriatric depression.Clinical trial registration[https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/], identifier [NCT04842929]. (shrink)

The composition of nitrogen-doped hydrogenated amorphous carbon films grown in a magnetically confined rf plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition system has been determined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and compared with that determined using a combination of elastic recoil detection analysis, Rutherford back-scattering and nuclear reaction analysis. The importance of nitrogen doping or 'incorporation' in hydrogenated amorphous carbon films is discussed in relation to the significant variation in the sp 2 -to-sp 3 ratio that takes place. At 7 at.% N in the (...) a-C : H matrix, a critical change in the microstructure is observed, which governs the resulting mechanical, optical and electronic properties. Finally, the correlation between the sp 2 and sp 3 fractions determined by a non-destructive method of obtaining the bond fractions and by electron-energy-loss spectroscopy is discussed, with a view to evaluating accurately the sp 2 fraction in a-C : H : N films. (shrink)

Indoor smoking bans in public places is usually held as a simple and straightforward example of the application of the harm principle in public health. However, implementing indoor smoking bans in mental health centres is difficult because of the potential neurological and social benefits of smoking for persons with schizophrenia, as suggested by some empirical studies. In this article, the ethical challenges related to smoking bans in mental health centres as justified by the harm principle are explored. Particular attention is (...) given to the case of R v. Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust . The article concludes by arguing that the possible benefits of smoking for persons with schizophrenia creates a rightful interest that cannot be ignored even if one applies the harm principle to protect others from the negative effects of second-hand smoke. Applying the harm principle in the case of smoking bans in mental health centres requires protecting the interest of persons with schizophrenia to smoke via the value of reciprocity. (shrink)

Background The concept of “health security” is often used to motivate public health responses, yet the ethical values that underpin this concept remain largely unexamined. The recent Australian responses to COVID-19 serve as an important case study by which we can analyse the pre-existing literature to see what ethical values shaped, and continue to shape, Australia’s response. Methods We conducted a critical interpretive literature review of academic and grey literatures within key databases, resulting in 2,220 sources. After screening for duplicates (...) and relevance, we analysed ninety-six sources. Results First, risk and uncertainty are a leading focus, with a heavy concentration on risks to life and health. Second, free movement, safety, and security were recurringly emphasized, albeit narrowly focused upon the safety of the population. Third, legitimacy was a recurring theme, and it is here that discussions of “health security” figured highly. Conclusion Discussions of harm from government and associated official bodies fail to adequately distinguish between various senses of harm. Moreover, while the literature often discusses the balancing of rights, the steps involved in the weighing of these rights is rarely adequately explained and defended. We suggest that decision-makers should endeavour to clearly identify and defend the values undergirding their decisions in the public sphere. (shrink)

Efforts to improve public health, both in the context of infectious diseases and non-communicable diseases, will often consist of measures that confer risk on some persons to bring about benefits to those same people or others. Still, it is unclear what exactly justifies implementing such measures that impose risk on some people and not others in the context of public health. Herein, we build on existing autonomy-based accounts of ethical risk imposition by arguing that considerations of imposing risk in public (...) health should be centered on a relational autonomy and relational justice approach. Doing so better captures what makes some risk permissible and others not by exploring the importance of power and context in such deliberations. We conclude the paper by applying a relational account of risk imposition in the cases of (a) COVID-19 measures and (b) the regulation of sugar-sweetened beverages to illustrate its explanatory power. (shrink)

South Africa shared with the world the warning of a new strain of SARS-CoV2, Omicron, in November 2021. As a result, many high-income countries (HICs) instituted complete travel bans on persons leaving South Africa and other neighbouring countries. These bans were unnecessary from a scientific standpoint, and they ran counter to the International Health Regulations. In short, South Africa was penalized for sharing data. Data sharing during pandemics is commonly justified by appeals to solidarity. In this paper, we argue that (...) solidarity is, at best, an aspirational ideal to work toward but that it cannot ground an obligation to share data. Instead, low-and-middle income countries (LIMCs) should be guided by the principle of reciprocity, which states that we ought to return good for good received. Reciprocity is necessarily a conditional principle. LMICs, we argue, should only share data during future pandemics on the condition that HICs provide enforceable assurances that the benefits of data sharing will be equitably distributed and that LMICs won’t be penalized for sharing information. (shrink)

Although various scholars underscore the importance of innovating responsibly in view of today's societal challenges, less attention has been paid to the entrepreneurial skillset, that is, the range of individual skills and organizational capabilities, that innovation-based organizations mobilize to deliver new responsible products and services. This paper thus explores the relationships between the entrepreneurial skillsets of 16 Canadian and Brazilian for-profit and not-for-profit organizations producing Responsible Innovations in Health (RIH) and their degree of responsibility. Our mixed methods study includes interviews (...) with entrepreneurs (n = 23) and fieldnotes as well as quantitative results from the RIH Assessment Tool. Our findings identify four skillset orientations—Technical, Technical + Business, Social, and Social + Business—that not only reflect (co)founders' training and entrepreneurial motivations but also a proclivity toward the consolidation of either “Technical” or “Social” skills and capabilities. Such consolidation is made possible by recruiting high-level executives with diverse backgrounds or by tapping on external knowledge sources (e.g., boards of directors, incubators, or volunteers). As five enterprises had no formal business skills, patterns associated to their overall RIH score (ranging from 1 to 5) reveal intriguing results. Organizations with a Social + Business skillset have a slightly lower RIH score (4.1) than those with a Social skillet (4.4) and those with a Technical + Business skillset have a slightly higher score (3.5) than those with a Technical skillset (3.0). The presence of business skills thus appears to mediate the relationship between entrepreneurial skillsets and the degree of responsibility, which may be linked to the distinct roles of ordinary (“doing things right”) and dynamic capabilities (“doing the right things”). These exploratory findings have scholarly and practical implications. First, the tensions and synergies characterizing responsible value creation should be approached by examining the complementary skills and capabilities that need to be assembled and consolidated. Second, the eight cases with a Social + Business skillset clarify the unique capabilities needed to produce highly responsible health innovations. Third, entrepreneurs with a scientific or engineering background should recognize that a Technical skillset is not enough. Fourth, recognizing that “falling in love with the cause” of RIH is not sufficient, investors and boards of directors should adequately support responsible entrepreneurs towards the proper orchestration of skills and capabilities that can reconcile economic and social goals. (shrink)

Academic publishing is undergoing a highly transformative process, and many established rules and value systems that are in place, such as traditional peer review (TPR) and preprints, are facing unprecedented challenges, including as a result of post-publication peer review. The integrity and validity of the academic literature continue to rely naively on blind trust, while TPR and preprints continue to fail to effectively screen out errors, fraud, and misconduct. Imperfect TPR invariably results in imperfect papers that have passed through varying (...) levels of rigor of screening and validation. If errors or misconduct were not detected during TPR’s editorial screening, but are detected at the post-publication stage, an opportunity is created to correct the academic record. Currently, the most common forms of correcting the academic literature are errata, corrigenda, expressions of concern, and retractions or withdrawals. Some additional measures to correct the literature have emerged, including manuscript versioning, amendments, partial retractions and retract and replace. Preprints can also be corrected if their version is updated. This paper discusses the risks, benefits and limitations of these forms of correcting the academic literature. (shrink)

Science-engaged theology has emerged as a new way of conducting research within the vast field of science and religion, with the aim of, at least in one way of understanding it today, solving theological puzzles. In this article we suggest that an analysis of the diversity of approaches in which thirteenth-century philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas engaged theological questions with the best knowledge of the natural world available at the time allows twenty-first century science-engaged theologians to move forward the discussion (...) about the different ways of engaging theology with the contemporary natural sciences. (shrink)

Resumen: El presente documento tiene por objeto indagar en las publicaciones académicas de dos saberes: la filosofía y la literatura. A partir de allí, se identificó la influencia de las ideas del filósofo Slavoj Žižek en esos documentos -artículos y libros-. Esta revisión se centró en dos países de la región latinoamericana tal como lo son Chile y Perú. Se revisaron las producciones académicas que hacen menciones a las hipotesis del esloveno trazando un recorrido histórico que permite identificar cual es (...) el año en que las ideas comenzaron a ingresar a estos países y el contexto teórico-escritural en que se incluyeron, destacando en Chile el de las ciencias sociales y en Perú el del análisis literario. Debido a la falta de investigaciones de este tipo, este artículo pretende actuar como material inaugurador de futuras investigaciones enfocadas en el estudio del impacto de las ideas del filósofo oriundo de Eslovenia en las producciones locales. Palabras Clave : Filosofía; Literatura; Chile; Perú; Latinoamérica; Slavoj Žižek: The present document aims to investigate the academic publications of two knowledge: philosophy and literature. From there, the influence of the ideas of the philosopher Slavoj Žižek on those documents - articles and books - was identified. This review focused on two countries in the Latin American region such as Chile and Peru. The academic productions that mention the Slovenian's hypothesis were reviewed, tracing a historical route that allows identifying which is the year in which the ideas began to enter these countries and the theoretical-scriptural context in which they were included, highlighting in Chile the social sciences and in Peru the literary analysis. Due to the lack of research of this type, this article intends to act as inaugural material for future research focused on the study of the impact of the ideas of the philosopher from Slovenia on local productions. Keywords: Philosophy; Literature; Chile; Peru; Latin America; Slavoj Žižek. (shrink)

Accelerated changes to the planet have created novel spaces to re-imagine the boundaries and foci of environmental health research. Climate change, mass species extinction, ocean acidification, biogeochemical disturbance, and other emergent environmental issues have precipitated new population health perspectives, including, but not limited to, one health, ecohealth, and planetary health. These perspectives, while nuanced, all attempt to reconcile broad global challenges with localized health impacts by attending to the reciprocal relationships between the health of ecosystems, animals, and humans. While such (...) innovation is to be encouraged, we argue that a more comprehensive engagement with the ethics of these emerging fields of inquiry will add value in terms of the significance and impact of associated interventions. In this contribution, we highlight how the concept of spatial and temporal scale can be usefully deployed to shed light on a variety of ethical issues common to emerging environmental health perspectives, and that the potential of scalar analysis implicit to van Potter’s conceptualization of bioethics has yet to be fully appreciated. Specifically, we identify how scale interacts with key ethical issues that require consideration and clarification by one health, ecohealth, and planetary health researchers and practitioners to enhance the effectiveness of research and practice, including justice and governance. (shrink)

Making research data readily accessible during a public health emergency can have profound effects on our response capabilities. The moral milieu of this data sharing has not yet been adequately explored. This article explores the foundation and nature of a duty, if any, that researchers have to share data, specifically in the context of public health emergencies. There are three notable reasons that stand in opposition to a duty to share one’s data, relating to: (i) data property and ownership, (ii) (...) just distribution of benefits and burdens and (iii) the contemporary ethos of science. We argue each reason can be successfully met with corresponding rationale in favour of data sharing. Further support for data sharing has been echoed in policies of health agencies, funding bodies and academic institutions; in documents on the ethical conduct of biomedical research; and in discussions on the nature of public health. From this, we ascertain that sharing data is the morally sound default position. This article then highlights the key roles reciprocity and solidarity play in supporting the practice of data sharing. We conclude with recommendations to regard public health research data as a common-pool resource in order to build a framework for stable data sharing management. (shrink)

Apresenta uma análise preliminar das manifestações dos autores das Ciências Sociais e Humanas dentro do campo da Biblioteconomia e da Ciência da Informação (B & C.I.), por meio do método bibliométrico e análise de citação. Com o objetivo de descortinar quais teóricos são convocados para a construção do conhecimento na produção científica dos campos supracitados, realizou-se uma pesquisa exploratória com vistas ao levantamento dos autores das Ciências Sociais e Humanas e, posteriormente, a verificação da ocorrência deles na produção indexada pela (...) Base de Dados em Ciência da Informação (BRAPCI). Foram identificados 180 autores, dos quais 91 apareceram pelo menos uma vez nas buscas empreendidas pelos nomes e sobrenomes desses autores das Ciências Sociais e Humanas. O resultado desta pesquisa demonstrou os dois autores mais citados, Michel Foucault e Pierre Bourdieu, bem como a presença de diversos autores das Ciências Sociais e Humanas na construção do conhecimento da Biblioteconomia e da Ciência da Informação, o que contribui para o fortalecimento e a consolidação de ambas. (shrink)

A common and driving assumption in agricultural research is that the introduction of research trials, new practices and innovative technologies will result in technology adoption, and will subsequently generate benefits for farmers and other stakeholders. In Lao PDR, the potential benefits of introduced technologies have not been fully realised by beneficiaries. We report on an analysis of a survey of 735 smallholder farmers in Southern Lao PDR who were questioned about factors that influenced their decisions to adopt new technologies. In (...) this study, we have constructed measures or states of adoption which identify key elements of an adoption decision-making nexus. Analysis was conducted to statistically group explanatory factors of adoption. The key explanatory factors represented attributes of the farmer, the factors considered when undertaking production decisions and elements of the agricultural value chain that present as opportunities or constraints. We describe the combination of farmer’s personal attributes, perceptions of the value chain, and the introduction of new technologies by external actors as an “agricultural research value chain”, where agricultural research activities intervene to derive greater benefits for local farmers. A generalised linear model, via Poisson regression analysis on the identified explanatory factors, was applied to explore how they influence adoption measures and we found several significant relationships. (shrink)

Translator's summary The translated paper is an extract, published in 1945, of an unpublished thesis, of both historical and technical import, dealing with notions of definability and their relation to invariance under automorphisms. The author develops a metamathematical Galois theory, and discusses and anticipates some aspects of higher-order model theory in an informal but conceptually rich manner.

This article aims to offer a fresh analysis of two passages in the extensive necromancy episode in Lucan's Bellum Ciuile: the ritual to reanimate the dead soldier's corpse (6.667–73), and the surgical procedure Erichtho then proceeds to undertake (6.750–7), resembling the practice of a vivisection. The study will focus mostly on the strong connection of magic to medical traditions in antiquity, with a commentary on, and analysis of, these verses through the lenses of medical vocabulary, themes and motifs. It ultimately (...) concludes that Lucan was familiar with the language and characteristics of the medical tradition, enriched his report with them, and was playing with his audience's knowledge of the same. (shrink)

The status of wild capture fisheries has induced many fisheries and conservation scientists to express concerns about the concept of using forage fish after reduction to fishmeal and fish oil, as feed for farmed animals, particularly in aquaculture. However, a very large quantity of forage fish is being also used untransformed (fresh or frozen) globally for other purposes, such as the pet food industry. So far, no attempts have been made to estimate this quantum, and have been omitted in previous (...) fishmeal and fish oil exploitation surveys. On the basis of recently released data on the Australian importation of fresh or frozen fish for the canned cat food industry, here we show that the estimated amount of raw fishery products directly utilized by the cat food industry equates to 2.48 million metric tonnes per year. This estimate, plus the previously reported global fishmeal consumption for the production of dry pet food suggest that 13.5% of the total 39.0 million tonnes of wild caught forage fish is used for purposes other than human food production. This study attempts to bring forth information on the direct use of fresh or frozen forage fish in the pet food sector that appears to have received little attention to this date and that needs to be considered in the global debate on the ethical nature of current practices on the use of forage fish, a limited biological resource. (shrink)

This article assesses the similarity and difference between the Western European style of doing bioethics and the Scandinavian one. First, it reviews the introductory article by the editor, C. Delkeskamp-Hayes in the first issue of Christian Bioethics (2008), devoted to the possibility of a specifically Christian bioethics in Europe. Second, it analyses bioethics debates in Scandinavian today. In light of Delkeskamp-Hayes' article, the main similarity is that both regions are facing secularization as a threat to basic Christian values, for example, (...) to the Christian view of the sanctity and dignity of the human life. But the Scandinavian tends to reduce Christian bioethics to Luther's concept of the worldly kingdom, supposed to foster a dialogue between Christians and non-Christians on controversial ethical issues. Despite the positive value of the dialogue, this strategy renders Christian ethics powerless. Third, from an evangelical theological standpoint, it proposes some strategies for enhancing the influence of Christian commitments on bioethical laws and policies. (shrink)

A critical review essay, this work explains the methodological, material, and ideological reasons for why "diversity" initiatives in philosophy face an up-hill battle.