Ethical Requirements Research Articles

The Australia New Zealand Congenital Colorectal Registry (ANZCCoRe): Driving innovation through collaboration

Colorectal paediatric surgeons, rare and complex colorectal patients, and data on this patient group are dispersed far and wide in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ). Online databases facilitate sharing and collating of data, and may help to connect physically separated clinicians and researchers. The Australia New Zealand Congenital Colorectal Registry (ANZCCoRe) is an international, multicentre patient registry that aims to improve clinical outcomes, standardise care, and enhance collaborations between centres with expertise in paediatric colorectal conditions across ANZ.The ANZCCoRe will collect retrospective and prospective clinical data of patients with anorectal malformations (ARM) and/or Hirschsprung disease (HD) through an electronic data capturing platform. Collected data will include demographic characteristics, diagnostics, care pathways, associated anomalies, surgical details and complications, and functional outcomes. The datapoints will be categorised into required core data elements and requested additional data elements. Data will be deidentified and stored on secured servers, meeting ethical and legal requirements. Data quality procedures will exist and feasible application of the findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability (FAIR) principles will promote data sharing and reuse with other registries.Besides gaining a better understanding of the patient and disease characteristics, monitoring care, and evaluating health-related outcomes, the ANZCCoRe provides a source for potential research participants. Lastly, the ANZCCoRe enhances advocacy for patients and families affected by colorectal conditions.The ANZCCoRe is the first multicentre congenital colorectal patient registry in this geographical region. Its strengths lie in facilitating research, standardisation of care, patient advocacy, and collaboration with paediatric surgical centres across ANZ and beyond.Level of Evidence: IV

Kontroversi Yuridis dalam Mi 6: 1-8

This article will discuss the juridical controversy in Mi 6:1-8. This theme is in the theological exegesis method, where the text is examined from linguistic, social context and theological angles. In this article it is found that the leaders displayed arbitrary and unjust behaviour, the priests failed in their sacred duties, and the prophets did not convey the truth. Within this context, the reader encounters two significant theological principles: first, human leaders should submit to God's authority, embodying true kingship, and second, the role of human leaders is to guide people towards a closer communion with God. These are the expectations placed upon them. This critique of the prophets is particularly evident in the opening section of chapter 6, where God expresses His grievances, expectations, and impending judgments against His people, the Israelites. To sum up, micah 6:1-8 contains God's moral and religious requirements directed at Israel. The dispute outlined in Micah 6:1-8, a recurring theme in Old Testament prophetic literature, is known as a "rîb." In this passage, Micah conveys God's conditions for reestablishing justice in their relationship with Him. The conclusion of this passage highlights a few essential religious and civil actions necessary for restoring their connection with God. It serves as a reminder to Israel of the genuine religious tradition embodied in the Torah. Through the prophet Micah, God called upon Israel to seek reconciliation and return to their true faith

Ethical governance in Chinese universities: an overview of research ethics committees

ABSTRACT This study aims to provide an overview of RECs (research ethics committees) in Chinese universities, encompassing both medical and non-medical studies. The primary objective is to identify major challenges faced by RECs in Chinese universities and draw meaningful implications from the findings. The investigation focuses on 42 comprehensive Chinese universities, and the results reveal that while all universities have implemented RECs in various forms, only 28.6% explicitly stipulate ethical review requirements for non-medical disciplines. Furthermore, RECs in Chinese universities encounter various challenges, including insufficient attention to research ethics review, inadequate ethics review systems and regulations, a lack of education and training, and lacking ethics review for non-medical research. This paper proposes recommendations for establishing robust RECs in Chinese universities, seeking to enhance ethical governance in research. By addressing the challenges identified, these recommendations aim to strengthen ethical oversight, foster a culture of responsible research, and uphold the highest ethical standards across diverse academic disciplines.

Reauditing and dual sourcing? Implication of collusion deterrence measures in ethical sourcing

AbstractWe consider a supply chain in which a buyer sources from a supplier for the production of a product. The supplier's production process is subject to probable violations of either government regulations or ethical requirements. The sourcing contract offered by the buyer demands that the supplier exerts an effort to improve its production process, thus reducing the probability of the occurrence of supplier violation. Because the supplier's effort is hardly observable, the buyer has to send an auditor to perform an audit of the supplier's facility. The auditor in turn reports whether the supplier has exerted the effort or not. If the supplier fails to pass the audit, she may offer a side contract to the auditor, thus engaging in a supplier‐auditor collusion. We study how such supplier–auditor collusion may affect the buyer's outsourcing strategy. We find that the buyer should reduce the order quantity to deter the supplier–auditor collusion when the collusion penalty is relatively low. We further examine reaudit and dual sourcing, two mechanisms which could probably prevent supplier–auditor collusion. We find that a reaudit may complement the collusion penalty under certain conditions; using dual sourcing to deter collusion is viable only if supplier‐improvement techniques or procedures are effective. Finally, we extend our model by considering false positive audit error and linear penalty function. Our analytical and numerical results show that our insights are robust.

Beyond the stethoscope: a COVID-19 lens on the halal, business and ethical dimensions of hospitals in a Muslim majority country

Purpose This study aims to examine the perceptions and evaluations of Muslim COVID-19 survivors and health workers regarding the halal, business and ethical attributes of hospitals during their interactions related to COVID-19 treatment. Design/methodology/approach Descriptive qualitative research with semi-structured online interviews was used to gather insights from COVID-19 survivors and health workers who treated COVID-19 patients. The findings were then compared with existing literature on hospital services and Sharia attributes. Findings The study found that patients and health-care workers in hospitals are concerned about whether the hospital follows Sharia law, the quality of health-care and hospital services and the ethical conduct of hospital staff. This is especially true during the COVID-19 pandemic, when patients are more anxious about religious conduct and the afterlife. Research limitations/implications Hospitals need to address halal attributes in all aspects of their services for Muslim patients and business attributes such as standard health-care quality, service quality and ethical attributes. Participants indicated that when these needs are met, they are more likely to revisit the hospital and recommend it to others. Originality/value This study contributes to understanding the expectations of Muslim patients regarding hospital services that meet Islamic ethical and business requirements. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study broadens the understanding of how to better serve Muslim customers.

Ethical awareness and professional responsibility: educating translators to tackle diversifying industry dilemmas

ABSTRACT Ethical awareness is arguably becoming ever more relevant with the increasing digitalisation of professional practice. Ethical dilemmas are changing in nature, becoming more diverse and more difficult to tackle, also as technologically infused realities give rise to more blurry boundaries. Language professionals, in training for the roles of the future, require a strong sense of professional responsibility. This correlates with the ability to define their own ethical profiles and to apply them agilely to navigate evolving industry expectations. Ethical profiling is paramount if graduates of translation education are to confidently engage with the variety of emerging language-based roles, including those that involve significant automation. This article focusses on professional ethical requirements for the language industry as exhibited in the Romanian national context and describes educational tools that may support the development of ethical awareness for newly trained translators. The article reports on a pedagogical model applied with second year master’s students in translation, which can ensure increased explicit exposure to ethically-charged professional scenarios as part of curriculum design. The suggestive model aims to mould professional ethical behaviours of trainee translators and to equip them with methodological options to support the continuous enhancement of their professional profiles while realistically assessing market developments and identifying shifts in ethical expectations.

Workforce Diversity in Organizations: A Systematic Review with an Emphasis on Iranian Organizations

Objective: Workforce diversity is an essential phenomenon in organizations. Statistics indicate a growing diversity among the workforce in Iran, particularly in terms of ethnic diversity. This study aims to examine work diversity through systematic review with an emphasis on Iranian Organizations. Methodology: This study employs the PRISMA method to review articles published on the management of diversity in organizations. Of the 140 identified Iranian and international articles, 59 relevant articles were selected. Most articles focus on gender diversity, and other causes of diversity, especially ethnic diversity, have received limited critical studies. Additionally, only a few articles address diversity management and its strategies in organizations, which represents a research gap. Findings: The research findings explored workforce diversity in four categories: the importance of diversity management; diversity management and communication; diversity management and organizational justice; diversity management and workforce productivity. Conclusion: The literature review demonstrated that workforce diversity is considered inevitable not only due to its positive organizational outcomes but also because of legal and ethical requirements in our contemporary world. Furthermore, it can be argued that the performance of diversity management at the organizational level has been overlooked. Notably, most researchers in the United States and Western European countries adopt quantitative approaches, highlighting the significance of qualitative approaches.

Ethical requirements and boundaries of conduct for educators in the digital environment: Neurolinguistic foundations

Ethical requirements and boundaries of conduct for educators in the digital environment: Neurolinguistic foundations

Development Features on the Selection of Animal Models for Teratogenic Testing.

Today, the use of animal models from different species continues to represent a fundamental step in teratogenic testing, despite the increase in alternative solutions that provide an important screening to the enormous quantity of new substances that aim to enter the market every year. The maintenance of these models is due to the sharing of similar development processes with humans, and in this way they represent an important contribution to the safety in the use of the compounds tested. Furthermore, the application of advances in embryology to teratology, although hampered by the complexity of reproductive processes, continues to prove the importance of sensitivity during embryonic and fetal development to detect potential toxicity, inducing mortality/abortion and malformations.In this chapter, essential periods of development in different models are outlined, highlighting the similarities and differences between species, the advantages and disadvantages of each group, and specific sensitivities for teratogenic testing. Models can be divided into invertebrate species such as earthworms of the species Eisenia fetida/Eisenia andrei, Caenorhabditis elegans, and Drosophila melanogaster, allowing for rapid results and minor ethical concerns. Vertebrate nonmammalian species Xenopus laevis and Danio rerio are important models to assess teratogenic potential later in development with fewer ethical requirements. Finally, the mammalian species Mus musculus, Rattus norvegicus, and Oryctolagus cuniculus, phylogenetically closer to humans, are essential for the assessment of complex specialized processes, occurring later in development.Regulations for the development of toxicology tests require the use of mammalian species. Although ethical concerns and costs limit their use in large-scale screening. On the other hand, invertebrate and vertebrate nonmammalian species are increasing as alternative animal models, as these organisms combine low cost, less ethical requirements, and culture conditions compatible with large-scale screening. Their main advantage is to allow high-throughput screening in a whole-animal context, in contrast to the in vitro techniques, not dependent on the prior identification of a target. Better knowledge of the development pathways of animal models will allow to maximize human translation and reduce the number of animals used, leading to a selection of compounds with an improved safety profile and reduced time to market for new drugs.

Making Sense of Race-Based Affirmative Action in Allocating Scarce Medical Resources

The aim of this article is to consider whether, when, and why it is morally right to treat members of socially disadvantaged racial or ethnic groups favorably when allocating scarce medical resources. Since the COVID 2019 pandemic has had different impacts on racial and ethnic groups, some U.S. states have given racial and ethnic minorities preferential access to COVID-19 vaccines, leading to controversy over the moral and legal permissibility of doing so. I examine three arguments for affirmative action—the compensation, equality-of-opportunity, and antidiscrimination arguments—and argue that both the equality-of-opportunity and antidiscrimination arguments have the potential to provide well-founded justification for race-based affirmative action for the allocation of scarce medical resources. I also consider further moral requirements that instances of affirmative action based on both or either of the two arguments should comply with for them to be justified.

Consented maternal care and associated factors among mothers who gave birth at public health institutions in South Wollo Zone, Amhara region, Ethiopia 2022.

Informed consent in healthcare services is a legal, ethical, and professional requirement on the part of all treating health providers and providing person-centered care. The methods of requesting consent during childbirth have not been extensively studied. In Ethiopia, there is not at all a single study done. The purpose of this study is to determine associated factors among mothers who gave birth at health institutions in the South Wollo Zone, Amhara region, Ethiopia in 2022. Mothers who gave birth at South Wollo Zone public health institutions, from 01 March to 30 April 2022 participated in a multi-center institutional-based cross-sectional study design. Systematic random sampling was used to select 423 study participants. A validated questionnaire was used for data collection, and the data were collected through face-to-face interviews. Data were entered into Epi-Data version 4.6 and exported to SPSS version 23 for analysis. A multivariable logistic regression analysis was performed to identify factors associated with the outcome variable. The level of significance was determined using an adjusted odds ratio with a 95% confidence interval. The study had 416 participants in total, with a response rate of 98.3%. Out of the 416 respondents interviewed, 67.1% of the women received consented care. The age group of 30-34, complications during childbirth, intended pregnancy, merchant, and primary and referral hospital were significantly associated with consented care. The level of non-consented care during delivery was high compared with other literature reflecting substantial mistreatment. Therefore, stakeholders should strengthen monitoring and assessment systems to prevent abuse, and further study is required to look for practical ways to make improvements. Key elements of consented care have also been included in Basic and Emergency Obstetric Care training sessions and given to health providers.

Ethical Requirements for Achieving Fairness in Radiology Machine Learning: An Intersectionality and Social Embeddedness Approach

Radiodiagnostics by machine-learning (ML) systems is often perceived as objective and fair. It may, however, exhibit bias towards certain patient sub-groups. The typical reasons for this are the selection of disease features for ML systems to screen, that ML systems learn from human clinical judgements, which are often biased, and that fairness in ML is often inappropriately conceptualized as “equality”. ML systems with such parameters fail to accurately diagnose and address patients’ actual health needs and how they depend on patients’ social identities (i.e. intersectionality) and broader social conditions (i.e. embeddedness). This paper explores the ethical obligations to ensure fairness of ML systems precisely in light of patients’ intersectionality and the social embeddedness of their health. The paper proposes a set of interventions to tackle these issues. It recommended a paradigm shift in the development of ML systems that enables them to screen both endogenous disease causes and the health effects of patients’ relevant underlying (e.g. socioeconomic) circumstances. The paper proposes a framework of ethical requirements for instituting this shift and further ensuring fairness. The requirements center patients’ intersectionality and the social embeddedness of their health most notably through (i) integrating in ML systems adequate measurable medical indicators of the health impact of patients’ circumstances, (ii) ethically sourced, diverse, representative and correct patient data concerning relevant disease features and medical indicators, and (iii) iterative socially sensitive co-exploration and co-design of datasets and ML systems involving all relevant stakeholders.

Visual digital data, ethical challenges, and psychological science.

Digital visual data afford psychologists with exciting research possibilities. It becomes possible to see real-life interactions in real time and to be able to analyze this behavior in a fine-grained and systematic manner. However, the fact that faces (and other personally identifying physical characteristics) are captured as part of these data sets means that this kind of data is at the highest level of sensitivity by default. When this is combined with the possibility of automatic collection and processing, then the sensitivity risks are compounded. Here we explore the ethical challenges that face psychologists wishing to take advantage of digital visual data. Specifically, we discuss ethical considerations around data acquisition, data analysis, data storage, and data sharing. We begin by considering the challenges of securing visual data from both public space security systems and social media sources. We then explore the dangers of bias and discrimination in automatic data processing, as well as the dangers to human analysts. We set out the ethical requirements for secure data storage, the dangers of "function creep," and the challenges of the right of the individual to withdraw from databases. Finally, we consider the tensions that exist between sensitive visual data that require extra protections and the recent open science movement, which advocates data transparency and sharing. We conclude by offering a practical route map for tackling these complex ethical issues in the form of a Privacy and Data Protection Impact Assessment template for researchers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

ВПЛИВ КОМУНІКАЦІЙНИХ ТЕХНОЛОГІЙ НА ПРОЦЕС АДАПТАЦІЇ УКРАЇНСЬКИХ БІЖЕНЦІВ У СЛОВАЧЧИНІ

This article is the result of an ethnographic study designed to reveal the interaction between modern communication technologies and the processes of adaptation of Ukrainian refugees in Slovakia, which takes place in an extremely complex socio-cultural context. The author aims not only to describe the facts, but also to offer in-depth analysis and theoretical reflections that allow us to better understand the impact of communication technologies on the process of refugee adaptation. The article offers a broad overview of the communication tools used by Ukrainian refugees in Slovakia, examining their role in identity formation, adaptation strategies, and interaction with the local population. The author uses ethnological methods to examine the dynamics of these interactions in detail, paying attention to the psychosocial and cultural dimensions of the adaptation process. The article reveals how the use of mobile applications, social platforms, and other technologies affects language learning, cultural heritage preservation, and the development of social networks and virtual communities on Facebook and Telegram. The study details the obstacles and benefits that arise from this interaction, as well as the ethnic and cultural aspects of the adaptation process. It also highlights the blocks of information most often sought by Ukrainian refugees in virtual communities. The author focuses on the issues of cybersecurity and privacy related to the use of technology, as well as their impact on the preservation of individual and collective rights and freedoms of Ukrainian refugees. The article takes into account the ethical requirements and challenges arising from the use of modern communication tools in the process of migration adaptation. The conclusions of the article emphasize that the use of technology is a key factor that helps Ukrainian refugees to preserve their cultural identity, expand social ties, and successfully adapt to the new socio-cultural environment. The article also identifies prospects for further research on the impact of communication technologies on migration dynamics and adaptation strategies.

Developing an Evidence-Based Ethics Education Program for Surgical Residents in Guatemala.

This study assessed 2 modalities for teaching responsible conduct of research and human subjects protection (RCR/HSP) to surgical residents in Guatemala-an "off the shelf" online curriculum and a new in-person curriculum specific to the local context. In 2018, 160 surgical residents in 3 large urban hospitals in Guatemala City completed 2 online programs in RCR/HSP. Residents in the intervention arm also completed 7 weeks of in-person training. Pre- and post-assessments tested awareness of key concepts with particular attention to international and Guatemalan research regulations. Group differences in matched (pre- and post-) mean scores were analyzed using t-tests. One hundred forty residents completed pre- and post-training assessments and were included in the analytic sample. Overall mean scores improved modestly from 52.7 to 58.7 points out of 100. Intervention-arm trainees reported greater confidence in recognizing ethical issues, understanding legal and ethical requirements for research, and identifying, reporting and avoiding scientific misconduct than control-arm trainees. Given the limited availability of RCR/HSP faculty, financial resources, and time in the surgical training schedule, the investigators recommend that academic authorities in Guatemala consider online training programs in RCR/HSP in all surgical residency programs as an affordable and scalable strategy to build ethical research skills in its surgical workforce. Investment in human resources to support in-person ethics education as a way to build self-efficacy in ethical decision-making should be considered.

Ethical requirements for lawyer’s interactions with other lawyers and advocacy self-regulation bodies

Ethical requirements for lawyer’s interactions with other lawyers and advocacy self-regulation bodies

Attitude to corruption practices of Russians and Chinese: Сross-cultural analysis

The article is devoted to a comparative analysis of the attitude of Russians and Chinese towards corrupt practices. The study was conducted anonymously in an online survey using the service https://webanketa.ru. 275 Russians and 105 Chinese took part in it. To determine attitudes towards corrupt practices, the author’s questionnaire was developed, based on the color model of A. Heidenheimer (2015). The questionnaire consisted of 59 hypothetical situations, to assess the corruption of which a 7-point scale was used. For the Chinese participants in the study, a bilingual philologist translated the questionnaire into Chinese. Reliability testing of the instrument confirmed high consistency of the data (Cronbach α = 0.962). The results of factor analysis made it possible to identify three factors and confirm the color model (black, gray, white) of the perception of corruption by A. Heidenheimer. The results of the study made it possible to identify both general features and culturally specific features of the perception of corruption. A comparative analysis of the data showed that deviant actions of officials or persons whose social role is strictly regulated in society and presupposes high moral qualities (judge, doctor, policeman, etc.) were assessed by respondents as highly corrupt in both samples. Also, in both national groups, respondents gave lower ratings to the corrupt actions of holders of such social roles as a flight attendant, teacher, or coach than to the corrupt actions of officials, who were subject to higher moral requirements. At the same time, respondents from China statistically reliably assessed hypothetical situations of black corruption as less corrupt, unlike Russians. White corruption, on the contrary, was condemned by the Chinese significantly more than by the Russians. The results obtained reflect the transcendental legitimation of power inherent in the Chinese mentality and the horizontal responsibility captured in the guanxi phenomenon.

Resolving the Human-subjects Status of Machine Learning's Crowdworkers

In recent years, machine learning (ML) has relied heavily on crowdworkers both for building datasets and for addressing research questions requiring human interaction or judgment. The diversity of both the tasks performed and the uses of the resulting data render it difficult to determine when crowdworkers are best thought of as workers versus human subjects. These difficulties are compounded by conflicting policies, with some institutions and researchers regarding all ML crowdworkers as human subjects and others holding that they rarely constitute human subjects. Notably few ML papers involving crowdwork mention IRB oversight, raising the prospect of non-compliance with ethical and regulatory requirements. We investigate the appropriate designation of ML crowdsourcing studies, focusing our inquiry on natural language processing to expose unique challenges for research oversight. Crucially, under the U.S. Common Rule, these judgments hinge on determinations of aboutness , concerning both whom (or what) the collected data is about and whom (or what) the analysis is about. We highlight two challenges posed by ML: the same set of workers can serve multiple roles and provide many sorts of information; and ML research tends to embrace a dynamic workflow, where research questions are seldom stated ex ante and data sharing opens the door for future studies to aim questions at different targets. Our analysis exposes a potential loophole in the Common Rule, where researchers can elude research ethics oversight by splitting data collection and analysis into distinct studies. Finally, we offer several policy recommendations to address these concerns.

Quality Management System and Audit Quality: The Moderating Effect of Independent Audit Inspection in China

Research aim: This study examines the effect of quality management systems (QMS), in terms of leadership responsibility, relevant ethical requirements, human resource, engagement performance, and monitoring, on audit quality (AQ). Also, this study examines whether independent audit inspection moderates the relationship between QMS and AQ. Design/ Methodology/ Approach: A total of 414 external auditors working in Chinese accounting firms responded to the online survey questionnaires. Research finding: By using SmartPLS as a tool for data analysis, the results showed that all elements of the quality QMS have positive effect on AQ. However, it failed to establish the moderating effect of an independent audit inspection on QMS and AQ. Theoretical contribution/ Originality: This study contributes to elucidating the significance of QMS in promoting AQ, as well as shedding light on the ongoing debate regarding the impact of independent audit inspection on AQ. Practitioner/ Policy Implication: Public accounting firms and regulators should focus on improving QMS to ensure high audit quality.

The Feeling Rules of Peer Review: Defining, Displaying, and Managing Emotions in Evaluation for Research Funding

Punctuated by joy, disappointments, and conflicts, research evaluation constitutes an intense, emotional moment in scientific life. Yet reviewers and research institutions often expect evaluations to be conducted objectively and dispassionately. Inspired by the scholarship describing the role of emotions in scientific practices, we argue instead, that reviewers actively define, display and manage their emotions in response to the structural organization of research evaluation. Our article examines reviewing practices used in the European Research Council’s (ERC) Starting and Consolidator grants and in the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action’s (MSCA) Individual Fellowships. These two European funding mechanisms offer different perspectives on the organization of grant evaluation. We conducted interviews with review panel members and analyzed various institutional documents. By drawing on the sociological concepts of feeling rules and emotional work, we demonstrate that reviewers define rules concerning how emotions should be experienced and expressed to ensure the proper functioning of evaluation, and that reviewers experience the need to actively regulate their emotions to comply with these rules. We present four feeling rules concerning the experience and expression of: (1) excitement for novelty during individual evaluation; (2) respect for others’ opinions and the absence of anger in review panels; (3) attentiveness and interest, which are seen as missing in online evaluations. Reviewers also expect ERC candidates to (4) avoid pride and manifest modesty during interviews. These rules demonstrate that proposal peer review is governed by emotional norms, and show the influence of organizational settings and moral requirements on research evaluation.