Establishing community advisory boards for clinical trial research in Malawi: engendering ethical conduct in research

In this article I deal with extending the ethical principles of research to include communities through the establishment of Community Advisory Boards (CABs). The aim of the project on which this article is based demonstrates the need for protecting communities that participate in research in order to stimulate ethical conduct in research in Malawi. In the article, I provide an overview on the role and functions of CABs. I discuss the establishment of CABs in Malawi and present descriptions of the processes and challenges involved. I conclude by sharing experiences of some of the key lessons learnt from the establishment of CABs.

Impact of ethical behavior on syndicated loan rates

This paper shows that borrowers’ ethical behavior leads lending banks to loosen financing conditions when setting loan rates. We advance the banking literature by stressing that the previous financing loosening is enhanced when there is similarity of lenders and borrowers along their ethical domain given that such similarity brings about familiarity and trust in non-opportunistic behavior between them, thereby contributing to lower information frictions. Unique data composed of 12,545 syndicated loan facilities from 19 countries for the period 2003–2007 indicate a 24.8% reduction in the mean spread associated with an increase of one standard deviation in the degree of borrowers’ ethical behavior from its mean value. Such reduction is enhanced to 37.6% when lenders also behave in an ethical way. Results withstand a battery of robustness tests including the use of alternative databases that capture the effect of the 2008 financial crisis, financing alternatives such as equity financing as well as nonparametric estimations.

The ethical ambivalence of resistant violence: notes from postcolonial south Asia

In the face of mounting militarism in south Asia, this essay turns to anti-state, ‘liberatory’ movements in the region that employ violence to achieve their political aims. It explores some of the ethical quandaries that arise from the embrace of such violence, particularly for feminists for whom political violence and militarism is today a moot point. Feminist responses towards resistant political violence have, however, been less straightforward than towards the violence of the state, suggesting a more ambivalent ethical position towards the former than the latter. The nature of this ambivalence can be located in a postcolonial feminist ethics that is conceptually committed to the use of political violence in certain, albeit exceptional circumstances on the basis of the ethical ends that this violence (as opposed to other oppressive violence) serves. In opening up this ethical ambivalence – or the ethics of ambiguity, as Simone de Beauvoir says – to interrogation and reflection, I underscore the difficulties involved in ethically discriminating between forms of violence, especially when we consider the manner in which such distinctions rely on and reproduce gendered modes of power. This raises particular problems for current feminist appraisals of resistant political violence as an expression of women's empowerment and ‘agency’.

Análise bioética do uso de artes expressivas no cuidado oncológico infantil em hospital público de Pernambuco

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade de Ciências da Saúde, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Bioética, 2015.

Bioethics, culture and infanticide in brazilian indigenous communities : the Zuruahá case

O artigo analisa a prática do infanticídio em comunidades indígenas brasileiras. Tomando como referência um caso específico envolvendo duas crianças do povo Zuruahá, focaliza o tema sob uma abordagem mais abrangente e discute como o infanticídio é interpretado em outros povos indígenas. Foram considerados, na discussão, os debates ocorridos durante a Audiência Pública realizada no Congresso Nacional Brasileiro, em dezembro de 2005, que analisou o tema, além de revisão bibliográfica. Diante dos posicionamentos assumidos naquela audiência, procurou-se identificar os problemas éticos e os dilemas morais, contextualizando-os e analisando-os à luz do respeito ao pluralismo cultural. A fim de contribuir com o debate, os autores analisam as possibilidades de intervenção nas práticas tradicionais de infanticídio, recusando qualquer opção que não esteja ancorada numa atitude de profundo respeito pela cultura de outros povos ou que não apresente condição de dialogar com indivíduos ou grupos com diferentes moralidades. ______________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT

Pediatric Nurses’ Information and Applications Related To Ethical Codes

Background: Ethics is defined as the entirety of moral principles that form the basis of individuals’ behavior; it can also be defined as “moral theory” or “theoretical ethics”. Objectives: To determinate information and applications related to ethical codes of pediatric nurses. Patients and Methods: Participants were nurses attending the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Nursing Course and the Pediatric Nursing Course conducted in Istanbul between September 2011 and December 2012. A total of nurses attending the courses at the specified dates and who agreed to participate in the study were included in the analysis. Data were collected through a questionnaire that we developed in accordance with current literature on nursing ethics. Results: 140 nurses participated in this study. Information and applications were related to ethical codes of nurses including four categories; autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, justice. The principle of confidentiality/keeping secrets. Exactly 64.3% of nurses reported having heard of nursing ethical codes. The best-known ethical code was the principle of justice. Furthermore, while the rates were generally low, some nurses engaged in unethical practices such as patient discrimination and prioritizing acquaintances. Conclusions: We conclude that most nurses working in pediatric clinics act in compliance with ethical codes. We also found that the majority of nurses wanted to learn about ethical codes. For this reason, we recommended that nurses working in clinics and future nurses in training be informed of the appropriate ethical behavior and codes.

Europe's strategic dilemmas

O lento progresso no domínio da cooperação militar reflete um problema mais profundo: a ausência de uma cultura estratégica europeia partilhada. Paralelamente, a presença de constrangimentos em matéria de recursos imprime à Europa uma maior urgência para cooperar. Na última década, o ambiente no qual a Europa opera mudou radicalmente – mudança esta que a Europa não conseguiu acompanhar. A evolução dos acontecimentos veio comprometer os pressupostos nos quais a Estratégia Europeia de Segurança, acordada em 2003, se baseou. Os europeus carecem de uma nova estratégia global, necessitando de fazer escolhas sobre o nível a que pretendem influenciar e como. Uma ilustração da tendência europeia para evitar realizar escolhas complexas reside no conceito de “parcerias estratégicas” – o quadro europeu de referência conceptual de relacionamento com potências líderes no século XXI. Se algo resta da aspiração da UE para se afirmar como “potência normativa” este conceito deve refletir uma distinção de política externa entre democracias e não-democracias.

Le sens de l’urgence à l’hôpital

Article

Taking Issue with History: Empathy and the Ethical Imperatives of Creative Interventions

The purpose of this thesis was to contribute to a dialogue that considers the relationship between history, literature, and empathy as a literary affect. Specifically, I explored sites of literature’s transformative potential as it relates to cultural studies and the ethics of deconstruction. Via a deconstructive, post-colonial reading of Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, I considered how subjects in our current socio-political moment can feel history. Emerging from a post-structurally mediated engagement with history, signification, and feeling, I argued that empathy, as it is contentiously presented in the context of deconstruction, is not necessarily a reductive or essentialist approach towards relating or “being-with” an-other. Instead, I proposed that the act of reading historiographical novels that take constructions of the Atlantic Slave Trade to task might generate an affective empathy, which could in turn engender a more empathetic relationality and way of being-in-the-world.

Le sens de l’urgence à l’hôpital

Article

Ethical-moral courses of action and active citizenship in health students

Abstract Introduction: The practice of active citizenship, ethical-moral courses of action and civic, moral and ethics education are essentials for ethical decision making in health. Objetive: To determine if gender influences students’ ethical- moral course of action. Methods: Descriptive study with a non-probabilistic sample of 85 students enrolled in the 1st cycle of the health degree. Results: Of the participants surveyed 61.2% were found to say that action should take into account their moral principles, with ethical/ moral subjectivism prevailing; 44.7% consider that one should “Do what will have the best consequences for the greatest number of people”, with the principle of utilitarianism being significant; 55.3% think that “An action is ethically good” if “It is in accordance with morality”, thereby highlighting subjectivism/relativism; 45.9% believe that “ethical-moral values” “are relative and vary from society to society” agreeing with relativism as an explanatory principle for action. Males showed a greater tendency to support their decision-making with the principle of objectivism, (Fischer=.010). Conclusion: The results suggest that students’ ethical-moral education is required to promote an ethical-moral course of action in their professional practice. Thus, universities with their health courses should be at the forefront of this education, making their graduates ambassadors/interveners of a way of knowing and of being as well as promoters of the dignity of the citizen of the modern world.

Fundaments of the ethical acting in university students

It is urgent that the superior Education in the health area develops in the students a pro-active ethical commitment which is translated into the creation of socio-professional and rational and clarified socio-cultural values.

Acknowledging ownership: ethical behaviour & academic integrity

Slides for Academic Integrity. See also notes on ECS module page: https://secure.ecs.soton.ac.uk/module/1617/COMP1205/33423/

A Convenient Verisimilitude or Oppressive Internalization? Characterizing the Ethical Arguments surrounding Hierarchical Structures in Knowledge Organization Systems

This paper considers the ethical concerns that surface around hierarchy as structure in knowledge organization systems. In order to do this, I consider the relationship between semantics and structure and argue for a separation of the two in design and critique of knowledge organization systems. The paper closes with an argument that agency and intention, as ethical concerns in knowledge organization, lead us to argue for a neutral stance on hierarchy.