The prevalence of ethics training in organizations rose from 50% in 2003 to 76% in 2011 (Ethics Resource Center 2012). This paper reviews the current state of ethics training in organizations and proposes a new conceptual model for designing effective ethics training programs based on Rest’s (1986) model of ethical decision-making. We argue that it is not the content of ethics training that fails to produce ethical behavior; it is the method by which ethics training is delivered. Most organizations utilize (...) training methods designed to disseminate information or facilitate ethical dilemma recognition. Few organizations utilize methods that allow for trainees to actually practice making an ethical decision. We argue that a comprehensive approach to ethics training should be used, so trainees may practice all aspects of making an ethical decision. This practice should then enhance transfer of ethics training to the job. We conclude with suggestions for how research could be conducted to empirically support these arguments and inform ethics training method choices. (shrink)

The serotonin transporter plays an important role in regulating serotonergic transmission via removal of serotonin from synaptic clefts. Alterations in 5-HTT expression and subsequent 5-HT transmission have been found to be associated with changes in behaviour, such as fearfulness or activity, in humans and other vertebrates. In humans, alterations in 5-HTT expression have been suggested to be able to lead to better learning performance, with more fearful persons being better at learning. Similar effects of the variation in the 5-HTT on (...) fearfulness have been found in chickens, and in this study, we investigated effects on learning. Therefore, we tested 52 adult laying hens, differing in their functional 5-HTT genotype in an operant learning paradigm in three different phases and in a tonic immobility test for fearfulness. We found that the 5-HTT polymorphism affects the initial learning performance of laying hens, with homogeneous wild-type hens being the slowest learners, and the most fearful birds. W/W hens, showed significantly more choices to solve the initial learning task and had the highest latencies in a tonic immobility test, indicating the highest fearfulness. Our results provide interesting first insights into the role of 5-HTT in chickens and its sensitive interaction with the environment. We further suggest that the 5-HTT gene can be an interesting target gene for future breeding strategies as well as for further experimental studies. (shrink)

With the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), global researchers were confronted with major challenges. The German National Pandemic Cohort Network (NAPKON) was launched in fall 2020 to effectively leverage resources and bundle research activities in the fight against the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We analyzed the setup phase of NAPKON as an example for multicenter studies in Germany, highlighting challenges and optimization potential in connecting 59 university and nonuniversity study sites. We examined the ethics application (...) process of 121 ethics submissions considering durations, annotations, and outcomes. Study site activation and recruitment processes were investigated and related to the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infections. For all initial ethics applications, the median time to a positive ethics vote was less than two weeks and 30 of these study sites (65%) joined NAPKON within less than three weeks each. Electronic instead of postal ethics submission (9.5 days (Q1: 5.75, Q3: 17) vs. 14 days (Q1: 11, Q3: 26), p value = 0.01) and adoption of the primary ethics vote significantly accelerated the ethics application process. Each study center enrolled a median of 37 patients during the 14-month observation period, with large differences depending on the health sector. We found a positive correlation between recruitment performance and COVID-19 incidence as well as hospitalization incidence. Our analysis highlighted the challenges and opportunities of the federated system in Germany. Digital ethics application tools, adoption of a primary ethics vote and standardized formal requirements lead to harmonized and thus faster study initiation processes during a pandemic. (shrink)

Arenhart_Krause_Uma-logica-da-indistinguibilidade.

This paper, a contribution to “micro set theory”, is the study promised by the first author in [M4], as improved and extended by work of the second. We use the rudimentarily recursive functions and the slightly larger collection of gentle functions to initiate the study of provident sets, which are transitive models of $\mathsf{PROVI}$, a subsystem of $\mathsf{KP}$ whose minimal model is Jensen’s $J_{\omega}$. $\mathsf{PROVI}$ supports familiar definitions, such as rank, transitive closure and ordinal addition—though not ordinal multiplication—and Shoenfield’s unramified (...) forcing. Providence is preserved under directed unions. An arbitrary set has a provident closure, and the extension of a provident $M$ by a set-generic $\mathcal{G}$ is the provident closure of $M\cup\{\mathcal{G}\}$. The improvidence of many models of $\mathsf{Z}$ is shown. The final section uses similar but simpler recursions to show, in the weak system $\mathsf{MW}$, that the truth predicate for $\dot{\varDelta}_{0}$ formulæ is $\Delta_{1}$. (shrink)

This is a set of three volumes containing edited versions of papers and commentaries presented in invited symposium sessions of the Eighth World Congress of the Econometric Society. The papers summarize and interpret recent key developments and discuss future directions in a wide range of topics in economics and econometrics. The papers cover both theory and applications. Written by leading specialists in their fields, these volumes provide a unique survey of progress in the discipline.

It has become increasingly common to conduct research on popular views on ethical questions. In this paper, we discuss when and to what extent popular views should be included in a reflective equilibrium process, thereby influencing normative theory. We argue that popular views are suitable for inclusion in a reflective equilibrium if they approximate considered judgments and examine some factors that plausibly contribute to the consideredness of popular views. We conclude that deliberation and familiarity contribute to the consideredness of popular (...) views, whereas prevalence does not. Furthermore, we raise the “fair trial” objection: that expert deliberation on popular views might fail to respect the consideredness of these views. Eliciting views approximating considered judgments directly from participants is therefore preferable to refining popular views or treating them as “bare” intuitions in the reflective process. These conclusions have important implications for which research methods will likely elicit popular views suitable for a reflective equilibrium process. Research focusing on the prevalence of views is unlikely to yield popular views suitable for a reflective equilibrium, whereas deliberative and in-depth work is more promising. (shrink)

THEN GO TO YOUR WORK WITH JOY - SOCIALITY AND SACRAMENTAILITY IN MARTIN LUTHER'S TEACHING OF THE CALLINGThe article investigates Martin Luther’s teaching of the calling in a social perspective. In the tradition following the pioneering work of Max Weber, the Reformation has often been interpreted a steppingstone towards processes of disenchantment, secularization and rationalization. In recent years, a growing body of literature has argued that this tradition overlooks crucial elements of reformation spirituality such as sacramentality, sociality and the affirmation (...) of ordinary life. With his conceptualization of work as a calling, Luther elevated and sanctified the everyday life and activities as a central component of the Christian life and the constitution of society. Here we might find the seed for the exceptionally high value ascribed to work in contemporary, Lutheran Nordic societies. (shrink)

This is the second of three volumes containing edited versions of papers and commentaries presented in invited symposium sessions of the Eighth World Congress of the Econometric Society. The papers summarize and interpret key developments and discuss future directions in a wide range of topics in economics and econometrics. The papers cover both theory and applications. Written by leading specialists in their fields, these volumes provide a unique survey of progress in the discipline.

This is the third of three volumes containing edited versions of papers and commentaries presented in invited symposium sessions of the Eighth World Congress of the Econometric Society. The papers summarize and interpret recent developments and discuss future directions in a wide range of topics in economics and econometrics. The papers cover both theory and applications. Written by leading specialists in their fields, these volumes provide a unique survey of progress in the discipline.

Does the critical discourse about resilience reiterate the problematic dichotomy between suffering and agency that the concept of resilience inscribes? In this discussion piece, I engage with Brad Evans’ and Julian Reid’s reflections on resilience. Although I share with Evans and Reid a normative critique of resilience, I am critical of their discussion of vulnerability. Rather than arguing that vulnerability precludes political transformation, as Evans and Reid do, or that vulnerability enables political coalition, as in Judith Butler’s account of precarity, (...) one should ask: how is vulnerability framed? I argue for framing vulnerability through a critical theory of the victim which explores the interconnections between injurability and agency rather than treating them as oppositional terms. (shrink)

In this paper, we introduce the Societal Readiness Thinking Tool to aid researchers and innovators in developing research projects with greater responsiveness to societal values, needs, and expectations. The need for societally-focused approaches to research and innovation—complementary to Technology Readiness frameworks—is presented. Insights from responsible research and innovation concepts and practice, organized across critical stages of project-life cycles are discussed with reference to the development of the SR Thinking Tool. The tool is designed to complement not only shortfalls in TR (...) approaches, but also improve upon other efforts to integrate RRI, sustainability, and design thinking in research and innovation cycles. Operationalization and early-stage user tests of the Tool are reported, along with discussion of potential future iterations and applications. (shrink)

Does the critical discourse about resilience reiterate the problematic dichotomy between suffering and agency that the concept of resilience inscribes? In this discussion piece, I engage with Brad Evans’ and Julian Reid’s reflections on resilience. Although I share with Evans and Reid a normative critique of resilience, I am critical of their discussion of vulnerability. Rather than arguing that vulnerability precludes political transformation, as Evans and Reid do, or that vulnerability enables political coalition, as in Judith Butler’s account of precarity, (...) one should ask: how is vulnerability framed? I argue for framing vulnerability through a critical theory of the victim which explores the interconnections between injurability and agency rather than treating them as oppositional terms. (shrink)

While “green marketing” has emerged as powerful competitive force, many markets lack clear institutional standards or knowledgeable customers to allow firms committed to sustainable practices to differentiate themselves from opportunistic, green-washing competitors. Within these contexts we propose a firm-level lens based on authentic firm reputation as an important, yet poorly understood, competitive force. Drawing on interview data from the architectural design services context we identify the elements that firms use to communicate their own authenticity, as well as discourage green-washing behavior (...) of peers, and present these elements as the “Diamond” model of authentic green marketing, consisting of: The ability to appear above commercial considerations; The ability to frame production methods as craft; The use of corporate visual identity; and An organization's social network of stakeholders. We conclude by discussing the generalizability and implications of our framework for practitioners as well as opportunities for future research. (shrink)

The nonlinear integro-differential equation, obtained from the coupled Maxwell-Dirac equations by eliminating the potential Aμ, is solved by iteration rather than perturbation. The energy shift is complex, the imaginary part giving the spontaneous emission. Both self-energy and vacuum polarization terms are obtained. All results, including renormalization terms, are finite.

Volume 20, Issue 7, July 2020, Page 150-152.

The Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI) is an ontology that provides terms with precisely defined meanings to describe all aspects of how investigations in the biological and medical domains are conducted. OBI re-uses ontologies that provide a representation of biomedical knowledge from the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) project and adds the ability to describe how this knowledge was derived. We here describe the state of OBI and several applications that are using it, such as adding semantic expressivity to (...) existing databases, building data entry forms, and enabling interoperability between knowledge resources. OBI covers all phases of the investigation process, such as planning, execution and reporting. It represents information and material entities that participate in these processes, as well as roles and functions. Prior to OBI, it was not possible to use a single internally consistent resource that could be applied to multiple types of experiments for these applications. OBI has made this possible by creating terms for entities involved in biological and medical investigations and by importing parts of other biomedical ontologies such as GO, Chemical Entities of Biological Interest (ChEBI) and Phenotype Attribute and Trait Ontology (PATO) without altering their meaning. OBI is being used in a wide range of projects covering genomics, multi-omics, immunology, and catalogs of services. OBI has also spawned other ontologies (Information Artifact Ontology) and methods for importing parts of ontologies (Minimum information to reference an external ontology term (MIREOT)). The OBI project is an open cross-disciplinary collaborative effort, encompassing multiple research communities from around the globe. To date, OBI has created 2366 classes and 40 relations along with textual and formal definitions. The OBI Consortium maintains a web resource providing details on the people, policies, and issues being addressed in association with OBI. (shrink)

Responding to a major pandemic and planning for allocation of scarce resources under crisis standards of care requires coordination and cooperation across federal, state and local governments in tandem with the larger societal infrastructure. Maryland remains one of the few states with no state-endorsed ASR plan, despite having a plan published in 2017 that was informed by public forums across the state. In this article, we review strengths and weaknesses of Maryland’s response to COVID-19 and the role of the Maryland (...) Healthcare Ethics Committee Network in bridging gaps in the state’s response to prepare health care facilities for potential implementation of ASR plans. Identified “lessons learned” include: Deliberative Democracy Provided a Strong Foundation for Maryland’s ASR Framework; Community Consensus is Informative, Not Normative; Hearing Community Voices Has Inherent Value; Lack of Transparency & Political Leadership Gaps Generate a Fragmented Response; Pandemic Politics Requires Diplomacy & Persistence; Strong Leadership is Needed to Avoid Implementing ASR … And to Plan for ASR; An Effective Pandemic Response Requires Coordination and Information-Sharing Beyond the Acute Care Hospital; and The Ability to Correct Course is Crucial: Reconsidering No-visitor Policies. (shrink)

The arts of rule cover the exercise of power by princes and popular sovereigns, but they range beyond the domain of government itself, extending to civil associations, political parties, and religious institutions. Making full use of political philosophy from a range of backgrounds, this festschrift for Harvey Mansfield recognizes that although the arts of rule are comprehensive, the best government is a limited one.

Research has suggested an increase in loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic, but much of this work has been cross-sectional, making causal inferences difficult. In the present research, we employed a longitudinal design to identify loneliness trajectories within a period of twelve months during the COVID-19 pandemic in Belgium (N = 2106). We were particularly interested in the potential protective role of self-compassion in these temporal dynamics. Using a group-based trajectory modelling approach, we identified trajectory groups of individuals following low (11.0%), (...) moderate-low (22.4%), moderate (25.7%), moderate-high (31.3%), and high (9.6%) levels of loneliness. Findings indicated that younger people, women, and individuals with poor quality relationships, high levels of health anxiety, and stress related to COVID-19, all had a higher probability of belonging to the highest loneliness trajectory groups. Importantly, we also found that people high in two of the three facets of self-compassion (self-kindness and common humanity) had a lower probability of belonging to the highest loneliness trajectory groups. Ultimately, we demonstrated that trajectory groups reflecting higher levels of loneliness were associated with lower life satisfaction and greater depressive symptoms. We discuss the possibility that increasing self-compassion may be used to promote better mental health in similarly challenging situations. (shrink)

How do people pursue rewards in risky environments, where some outcomes should be avoided at all costs? We investigate how participant search for spatially correlated rewards in scenarios where one must avoid sampling rewards below a given threshold. This requires not only the balancing of exploration and exploitation, but also reasoning about how to avoid potentially risky areas of the search space. Within risky versions of the spatially correlated multi‐armed bandit task, we show that participants’ behavior is aligned well with (...) a Gaussian process function learning algorithm, which chooses points based on a safe optimization routine. Moreover, using leave‐one‐block‐out cross‐validation, we find that participants adapt their sampling behavior to the riskiness of the task, although the underlying function learning mechanism remains relatively unchanged. These results show that participants can adapt their search behavior to the adversity of the environment and enrich our understanding of adaptive behavior in the face of risk and uncertainty. (shrink)

James a maintes fois célébré les rencontres philosophiques et l’on sait les efforts de James et de Bergson pour se voir, lors des passages de James en Europe. Proximité physique ne signifie évidemment pas convergence ni capillarité philosophiques, comme l’apprend à ses dépens Agathon dans le Banquet de Platon. Or, le rapprochement, mais aussi les confusions, entre la philosophie de Bergson et celle de James, voire entre « bergsonisme » et « pragmatisme », restent un passage obligé de l’étude des (...) deux hommes. Si cette confusion — peut-être ces familles de confusions — sont caractéristiques du début du XXe siècle , il serait sans doute illusoire de croire que nous en sommes sortis aujourd’hui. C’est en France une expérience encore très répandue chez le jamesien que devoir se justifier par rapport au « bergsonisme », et c’en est une autre pour le « bergsonien » que de devoir dire qu’il n’est pas forcément « pragmatiste ». Ces glissements ont déjà été maintes fois analysés et je tiendrai ici pour acquis que Horace Kallen , Floris Delattre , Ralph Barton Perry et Millic Capek , qui ont procédé à la revue de détail, nous ont donné suffisamment d’éléments pour qu’il ne soit pas nécessaire de reprendre le dossier dans son ensemble. Le propos sera plutôt de décomposer un travers de lecture que l’on inflige généralement aux deux auteurs à partir d’un terrain plus limité : le thème du « courant », ou flux (stream), de conscience, thème prétendument commun aux deux hommes. Je vais pour cela tenter d’identifier, dans la première section, deux grandes manières d’aborder le rapport entre les deux hommes qui ont conduit à méconnaître leur apport propre. L’une interdit tout simplement de les lire comme philosophes, même si elle est couramment pratiquée, ce que j’illustrerai à la lumière de deux exemples. L’autre type de lecture engage, lui, un contresens sur la thèse même de James, et c’est ici que la face critique de ce chapitre se retourne en argument positif. Le cœur de ce contresens est de croire que James aurait introduit le thème du courant de pensée ou de conscience, et que ce serait là son originalité. Or, comme il est normal chez un auteur pragmatiste après tout, l’originalité réside dans l’usage qui est fait de ce thème. En examinant dans la deuxième section les rouages de ce contresens, dont il n’est pas certain que tous les lecteurs de Bergson l’aient totalement évité alors même qu’ils pensaient le déposer, on tentera donc de préciser tout d’abord en quoi le thème lui-même n’est pas spécifiquement jamesien, ensuite en quoi le propos de James n’est pas tant de décrire ce flux pour lui-même que de nous expliquer ce qui nous guette si nous le négligeons systématiquement, enfin quelles sont les fonctions remplies par les passages sur le courant de conscience dans l’argument de James. (shrink)