Official Code Research Articles

ACCREDITING COUNSELLORS – WHAT THE BAC DOES AND HOW

The British Association for Counselling (BAC) is described from the point of view of accreditation. Commendable as counselling in general may be, as with all other disciplines, accreditation for individual counsellors, along with official codes of ethics and practice, has been found necessary in order to give it the authority it deserves. As the need for counselling becomes inextricably linked with organisational effectiveness, this can only assist in improving employer/employee relationships.

Deciphering professional codes of ethics

The author focuses chiefly on the Code of Professional Standards for the Practice of Public Relations, analyzing two specific aspects of this or any professional code: implicit and explicit attitudes toward the public and toward the truth. He argues that professionals confronted by ethical dilemmas in these areas should be able to, but usually cannot, find clear direction in the official code. He suggests that to function truly as a legitimizing document, the code must be expository, analytical, and evaluational, constructed according to six recommendations offered.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Prisonization, Staff, and Inmates

It was argued that implicit in the concept of prisonization is the assumption that the relationship between the staff and inmate social systems is oppositional both normatively and behaviorally. This assumption was termed the opposition assumption. This assumption may be false and needed to be empirically tested. Using the Q-type correlation coefficient in conjunction with the Q-sort relative rating procedure, the specific issues to which this investigation addressed itself were (a) whether staff members would exhibit high agreement, (b) whether inmates would exhibit high agreement, and, most important, (c) whether staff and inmates would exhibit low agreement in their appraisals of the prison's official administrative code regulating inmate conduct. These expectations were derived directly from the opposition assumption. Results substantiated the first two expectations. The third and most important expectation, however, was convincingly disconfirmed. Agreement between the staff groups and the inmate groups was as high as the within-staff and within-inmate agreement. Moreover, some groups of staff showed more agreement with some groups of inmates than they did with other groups of staff. Likewise, some groups of inmates showed more agreement with some groups of staff than they did with other groups of inmates.

Horror stories—a new approach to case studies in computing

Abstract Technology is advancing rapidly, making the computer industry a challenging prospect for a student. However, many existing computer systems are organized inefficiently and official codes of practice are neglected. It is important for the teacher to prepare students for such an environment, and to make them realize the relevance and importance of recommended procedure and practice. Most students will lack extensive practical experience and so the teacher will use case study material. The traditional case study is inadequate for this purpose, and a ‘horror story’ is proposed as a useful tool for both teacher and student. The distinctive features of horror stories are outlined, and a sample story is provided.

Where Does it Hurt? Identifying the Real Concerns in the Ethics of Reference Service

What is the right thing to do-for our clients, for ouremployers,for our government and society, for, our colleagues and ourselves? In theory no subject would seem to be of more importance to reference librarians than the ethical considerations that underlie theiractivities. In fact the topic gets little attention.' Bernard Vavrek, who is himself one of the few people to make a serious study of ethical issues, has deplored reference librarians' lack of interest in this subject.* His concern is commendable but the sad reality is that, considering the way in which the subject has usually been treated and presented, the apathy with which it has been received is understandable and perhaps even warranted. The most common type of presentation has taken the form of a library association promulgating an official code or formal statement which presumes to set forth the principles and precepts by which the librarian is to be guided into righteous behavior. Some examples of such codes or statements are those issued by the American Library Association (1938 and 1975)? the Institute of Professional Librarians of Ontario (1975): the Ohio Library Association (1976),J the California Library Association (1976): the American Library Association (the 1979 revision of the 1975 version)? and the Library Association (1980).8 The failings of these documents are not difficult to detect. In a number of instances, notably that of the ALA Code of Ethics of 1938, the writing itself is so bad as to have prompted severe criticism. The vague idealism,'' fatuous adjurationsl0 and pompous platitudes11 of such a statement are reason enough for ignoring it. Another problem is that the documents often mix up major points of principle with minor matters of etiquette.'* Stillanotherdrawback, in thiscase more the fault

High-Performance Liquid Chromatographic Determination of Components of Bleomycin Preparations

A fast and sensitive method was developed for the quantitative determination of at least 10 components of pharmaceutical bleomycin sulfate preparations. The method is based on the reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) separation of the components on a μBondapak C18 column with a mobile phase having a linear gradient of 10-40% methanol in aqueous 0.005 M 1-pentanesul-fonic acid at pH 4.3. With this assay, the average standard deviations for components A2 and B2 are 0.92 and 0.87, respectively, for a 7.5-22.5 × 110−3-mg sample. Regulatory agencies presently use the official Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), method, which is based on CM-Sephadex column chromatography. It was demonstrated that this CFR method does not separate the bleomycin A2 component from some other minor bleomycin components. After elution from the CM-Sephadex column, the “A2 component” was separated into five components by the HPLC method. Bleomycin A2 is stable under these HPLC conditions.

Medical Ethics and Professional Monopoly

The study of medical ethics should properly include codes of ethics issued by Enlightenment philos ophers and modern medical associations. Official codes of ethics adopted by the medical profession in England and the United States have exhibited monopolistic tendencies which have strengthened over time. Examination of Thomas Percival's 1803 code of ethics reveals monopolistic rules in the areas of trust inducement, consultations, criticism, and fee setting. Another ethical code, written by John Gregory in 1770, provides evidence of antimonopolistic ethical atti tudes during the Enlightenment which were not subse quently adopted by official professional bodies. The series of ethical codes issued by the American Medical Association since its inception in 1847 exhibits even more monopolistic rules than had Percivalean ethics. In contrast to the mono polistic tendencies of official medical ethics, however, trends are currently emerging toward nonmonopolistic counter- ethics in the areas of restraint of competition, patient decision making, professional review mechanisms, and rational health care services planning.

Commentary on the 1961 Code of Zoological Nomenclature

THE 1961 CODE is a remarkably efficient instrument of nomenclatural procedure compared with its predecessor; it is also a remarkably sound digest of best ideas that arose and were weighed from almost every angle in connection with 1948, 1953, and 1958 meetings of International Congress of Zoology. It is not pretended that all taxonomists will be wholly pleased with more than a few of Articles of this Code, or that any taxonomist will be satisfied with all of them, but end result is still on whole a remarkably useful achievement. Knowing that Code cannot reflect all idiosyncratic views of any one person, it is perhaps of questionable value for one person to make suggestions for its improvement; yet it seems so patently desirable for certain changes ultimately to be effected that at least some constructive ideas for improvement-those of presumably most general appeal-should be voiced in order to assure their consideration at an appropriate time. The following commentary, embracing only matters of possible general agreement although these include many of minor as well as a few of major importance, is thus presented simply as grist for impartial mill of Commission consideration, with full knowledge that refined product must be small in volume and perhaps almost unrecognizable in form as compared with raw material. Miscellaneous Definitions. The definitions given of family, subfamily, genus, subgenus, and are in part highly dubious. Each is defined as a category of a given level, and also as a taxon of that category. In reality only second definition is valid at least on basis of usage; certainly reference to, for example, generic or categories implies only that these categories are composed of units of generic or rank of genera or species. The hierarchy of units of classification-the Phylum, Class, Order, etc. as commonly explained does indeed list these units as though they were categories themselves, but it is surely always implicit that in reality these are merely names applied to units comprising categories. Reference to the genus or the is surely to concept of units known as genera or not to category. It would also be very useful to include among definitions a fixation for and subspecies for reason that connotation of these terms is very different from or nominal species, or specific and subspecific name. The latter two are restricted to second and third terms of a binomen and trinomen, respectively, whereas and subspecies refer to name of species and subspecies, therefore entire binomen or trinomen. Binomial Nomenclature. The latter discussion points up impropriety of term binominal as general term for system of speciesgroup that is, Linnaean nomenclature. Trinominal commonly practiced as a part of modern taxonomy and certainly covered by official Code for more than 50 years, is by etymological indication, not included in binominal nomenclature, term officially accepted in 1961 Code for system of nomenclature zoologists now use and have used for 200 years. The im-

Reviewing the New Braille Code

The following summary is intended to acquaint braille readers and transcribers with the significant changes in the braille system. It does not include all of the major rule changes designed primarily for uniformity of embossing. These may be found in the official code manual, published in braille and inkprint editions by the American Printing House for the Blind, 1839 Frankfort Avenue, Louisville 6, Kentucky.