The four principles: Can they be measured and do they predict ethical decision making?

Background The four principles of Beauchamp and Childress - autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence and justice - have been extremely influential in the field of medical ethics, and are fundamental for understanding the current approach to ethical assessment in health care. This study tests whether these principles can be quantitatively measured on an individual level, and then subsequently if they are used in the decision making process when individuals are faced with ethical dilemmas. Methods The Analytic Hierarchy Process was used as a tool for the measurement of the principles. Four scenarios, which involved conflicts between the medical ethical principles, were presented to participants and they made judgments about the ethicality of the action in the scenario, and their intentions to act in the same manner if they were in the situation. Results Individual preferences for these medical ethical principles can be measured using the Analytic Hierarchy Process. This technique provides a useful tool in which to highlight individual medical ethical values. On average individuals have a significant preference for non-maleficence over the other principles, however, and perhaps counter-intuitively, this preference does not seem to relate to applied ethical judgements in specific ethical dilemmas. Conclusions People state they value these medical ethical principles but they do not actually seem to use them directly in the decision making process. The reasons for this are explained through the lack of a behavioural model to account for the relevant situational factors not captured by the principles. The limitations of the principles in predicting ethical decision making are discussed

Just Another After-School Program? A Cross-Sectional Look at Whether Access to Educational Resources and Mentorship via Casa de Amistad Improves Students\u27 Academic Outcomes in the San Dieguito School District

Since beginning in 1997, Casa de Amistad’s academic mentoring program has grown from serving three students on its first night to over 230 undeserved children, teens and their parents annually. Students participating in Casa de Amistad (Casa) are from school districts throughout coastal North County San Diego. In the past 16 years, teachers in the district have noticed an increase in homework completion and classroom participation, as well as an improvement in grades and test scores among students who participated in Casa. This study was designed to further research the performance and needs of Casa de Amistad’s students in an effort to refine and grow the program. After the 2014-2015 academic year, 185 parents and 143 students were surveyed

Grassland Interview: Drawing the Prairie Workshop

Drawing the Prairie Workshop” is driven by a central question: How do we authentically bring arts and sciences together to promote understanding of grasslands? The project brings Wiersma’s large scale drawings on paper together with recorded interviews of scientists and land managers collected by Kingery-Page. While this artistic collaboration is experienced in galleries, the project also engages people of the region, in a variety of settings, to build their understanding of grasslands through drawing of grassland plants.Grasslands provide essential ecosystem services, such as groundwater recharge, water quality improvement, pollinator habitat, and carbon sequestration. But worldwide, the outlook for conservation of grasslands is bleak: just 45% remain, and only a little over 4% of these are in a protected status.The faculty team invites a broad public to experience the workshop they have offered in locations across the state of Kansas. During 2019-2020, the workshops reached more than 240 people

Budget 2021: a missed opportunity to make permanent the £20 increase to Universal Credit

Ruth Patrick, Kayleigh Garthwaite, Geoff Page, Maddy Power, and Katie Pybus comment on the government’s decision to extend the £20 uplift to Universal Credit by six months only. They argue that the increase should be a permanent one, as part of a broader commitment to reforming the social security system

Operationalizing transformative tourism: Creating dementia-friendly outdoor and nature-based visitor experiences

© 2023 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/A values-based approach embedded in the transformative tourism research paradigm is used to examine dementia-friendly outdoor and nature-based experiences. Interview and site audits were conducted to explore the visitor economy-nature-well-being nexus. Using thematic analysis, researchers set out to understand how organizational change can improve the visitor journey through values and actions that create an accessible visitor experience for people suffering from dementia. The findings show that while the current practice of providing events and tailored sessions for the local community is a good start, further development is needed; this paper offers selected pathways to becoming a dementia-friendly business, including the Importance of an organisational champion and an accessible site and a nature-based experience or event that appeals to a wide audience. Theoretically, this work operationalizes transformative tourism and provides a framework for future work.Peer reviewe

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in cancer pain:A database analysis to determine recruitment feasibility for a clinical trial

BACKGROUND: Insufficient evidence exists to support or refute use of NSAIDs for managing cancer pain. Palliative physicians support a placebo-controlled trial of NSAIDs as strong opioid adjuncts for cancer-induced bone pain as the most pragmatic design to benefit clinical practice. AIM: We aimed to determine patient numbers receiving palliative radiotherapy for cancer-induced bone pain, estimate the suitability of NSAID prescription and determine survival, guiding future trial feasibility. DESIGN: A retrospective observational database analysis was undertaken using 5 years of routinely collected regional radiotherapy and healthcare data, filtered to achieve a cohort with cancer-induced bone pain. Demographics and survival were linked to available serology and co-morbidity data. SETTING/PARTICIPANTS: Data was sourced from the regional Leeds Cancer Centre, a tertiary care setting. Patients who underwent palliative single fraction 8 gray (Gy) radiotherapy treatment for cancer-induced bone pain were included, totalling 2411 over 5 years. RESULTS: A mean of 478 patients received palliative radiotherapy for cancer-induced bone pain annually. Median age (IQR) was 70 (62–77); negatively skewed (−0.69). 65.3% died within 1 year of radiotherapy; 48.0% within 6 months. Age was not associated with survival on univariable analysis (HR 0.999 (95% CI 0.996–1.003)). Serology from 1063 patients (44.2%) were available; eGFR was ⩾60 mL/min/1.73 m(2) in 83.0%. From available data (1352 pts; 51.6% of sample), 20.2% had a coded co-morbidity contra-indicating NSAIDs. Combining serology and co-morbidities, 68.5% could be considered for NSAID prescription. CONCLUSIONS: Patient numbers at a regional radiotherapy centre support the feasibility of trial recruitment. Available serology and co-morbidity data suggest two-thirds may be suitable for NSAID prescription

Bee-ing Ramsey: Planning Pollinator Habitats

Poster set completed by students enrolled in PA 5211: Land Use Planning, taught by Fernando Burga in fall 2017.This project was completed as part of the 2017-2018 Resilient Communities Project (rcp.umn.edu) partnership with the City of Ramsey. Ramsey is rich in natural resources, which are highly valued by residents. The City was in the process of updating its Comprehensive Plan, including the natural resources component, and wanted to develop innovative strategies to identify, protect, and communicate to the public the value of natural resources. With a focus on protecting and restoring habitat for pollinators, students in Dr. Fernando Burga’s Land Use Planning class identified key pollinators and habitats, outlined existing pollinator-friendly policies in Ramsey, researched best practices in other communities to protect and expand pollinator habitat, and identified key opportunities to protect pollinators in conjunction with residential and mixed-use development, open space areas, and transportation corridors. A final report is available.This project was supported by the Resilient Communities Project (RCP), a program at the University of Minnesota whose mission is to connect communities in Minnesota with U of MN faculty and students to advance community resilience through collaborative, course-based projects. RCP is a program of the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA). More information at http://www.rcp.umn.edu

Cooperation and partner choice among Agta hunter-gatherer children: An evolutionary developmental perspective

Examining development is essential for a full understanding of behaviour, including how individuals acquire traits and how adaptive evolutionary forces shape these processes. The present study explores the development of cooperative behaviour among the Agta, a Filipino hunter-gatherer population. A simple resource allocation game assessing both levels of cooperation (how much children shared) and patterns of partner choice (who they shared with) was played with 179 children between the ages of 3 and 18. Children were given five resources (candies) and for each was asked whether to keep it for themselves or share with someone else, and if so, who this was. Between-camp variation in children's cooperative behaviour was substantial, and the only strong predictor of children's cooperation was the average level of cooperation among adults in camp; that is, children were more cooperative in camps where adults were more cooperative. Neither age, sex, relatedness or parental levels of cooperation were strongly associated with the amount children shared. Children preferentially shared with close kin (especially siblings), although older children increasingly shared with less-related individuals. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding cross-cultural patterns of children's cooperation, and broader links with human cooperative childcare and life history evolution