India US Business Ethics

The U.S. and India are on opposite sides of the world, yet in today’s globalized world they might as well be next door neighbors. The commonalities in democratic governments and the use of English in official matters can make doing business transactions across borders easy between India and the U.S. At the same time, the cultural differences should not be ignored. This paper explores the impact of cultural differences between the U.S. and India in the particular area of business ethics. A comparative analysis is performed on the business codes of conduct from fifty major corporations in each country revealing some distinct differences in ethical attitudes. The hierarchical and collectivist nature of the Indian culture versus the all-encompassing and individualistic nature of the U.S. culture are reflected in four main findings. First, U.S. companies apply their codes of conduct to all employees, whereas Indian companies generally apply their codes of conduct only to senior management. Second, U.S. companies require their employees to report on their colleagues if they see them violating the code, whereas Indian companies generally do not. Third, India is more specific about defining what a relative is when discussing items such as conflict of interest. Finally, in both countries, there is a strong expectation to protect the interests of the company and not achieve personal gains at the company’s expense

Teaching Notes for CHAPTER 12: Security by Drones: The Global Market for Remote-Controlled Warfare

Teaching Notes for Security by Drones: The Global Market for Remote-Controlled Warfare, by Rebecca LeFebvre. At its core, this case is about how advancements in technology can change the face of armed warfare. Policies, standards, and international law often lag behind these advancements leaving a void to be filled by the whim of an anarchical international system. Drone technology seems to have emerged overnight to the front line of global armed conflict. This case highlights the implications of drone technology to public-private sector interaction, civil-military coordination, and computer-human ethics

Interests and Identities in Peace Negotiations: Nigeria, Cameroon, and the Bakassi Peninsula

For close to fifty years, the territorial dispute between Nigeria and Cameroon continued over the region along their border known as the Bakassi peninsula. The dispute almost led to war in the mid-1990s, was settled by the International Court of Justice in 2002, and resulted in hand-off of the territory by Nigeria to Cameroon in 2008. Content analysis of newspapers from Nigeria and Cameroon for the year 2010 revealed underlying identity-based needs that had been left largely unaddressed. Analysis of Nigerian newspapers showed a prevalent discussion of unfulfilled identity needs and an unresolved identity-conflict potential. Analysis of Cameroonian newspapers revealed the fulfilling of a new identity as the Bakassi region was proactively populated with Cameroonian citizens, culture, and connectivity to the rest of the country. The Bakassi dispute resolution was heralded as a success by state leadership, but it was not perceived in the same way by the general population as evidenced in the content analysis. Public opinions expressed in the media were less reflective of a cooperative result and more reflective of a zero-sum negotiation result with a clear winner and a clear loser

Global Issues

POLS 2401 Global Issues is an introductory survey course designed to introduce the students to numerous current issues confronting the globe\u27s policy-makers and populations. The course provides an opportunity for diversity in the students\u27 educational program and presents information that fosters global understanding and engagement. This course has several key objectives. By the end of the course students should be able to identify and describe some major political, economic, social, and environmental issues confronting the global community and discuss the underlying reasons for a lack of resolution to major threats to peace and stability in the world. POLS 2401 is part of KSU’s General Education Core Curriculum program. More specifically, it is part of Area B2 for Critical Thinking skills in the Institutional Options section. For Area B2, students may select one of 22 listed courses, and POLS 2401 is one of the 22 courses. There are no pre-requisites for the course, and it is taken by all levels of undergraduate students across all majors and disciplines. This POLS 2401 course was designed as a template course for the School of Government and International Affairs. Faculty have the option of developing their own version of POLS 2401, or using this template course. This is particularly helpful with part-time faculty who are often brought in to teach core courses. The template course reduces their workload in preparing to teach, and it provides some consistency across the School on how the course is taught

Acupuncture as a Complementary Therapy for Cancer Care: Acceptability and Preferences of Patients and Informal Caregivers

Background: Acupuncture can effectively manage cancer-related side effects, for both patients undergoing treatment and for cancer survivors. It may also be effective in managing physiological and psychological symptoms common among informal caregivers of cancer patients. Objectives: The aim of this survey was to explore the acceptability and preferences of cancer patients, cancer survivors, and their informal caregivers in relation to acupuncture. Methods: The survey was conducted from 20th November to 27th November 2018. The questionnaire was developed to explore acceptability and preferences, including motivation, symptoms to be addressed, and practical issues (location, cost, etc.), in relation to acupuncture. Results: The survey response rate was 94.5% in cancer patients and cancer survivors and 100% in caregivers. Acceptability of acupuncture was 34.5% (n = 40/116) and 48.0% (n = 26/54) in cancer patients and caregivers, respectively. About 52.5% (n = 21/40) of patients preferred to undergo acupuncture at the day center clinic, whereas caregivers had no specific preference. Patients and cancer survivors would use acupuncture for symptoms of fatigue (60%), listlessness (57.5%), and pain (47.5%). Informal caregivers expressed an interest in using acupuncture for their pain, stress, and sleeping difficulties 48.0% (n = 26/54). Conclusion: Cancer patients, cancer survivors, and informal caregivers would accept acupuncture as a complementary therapy. This openness and preference to acupuncture provide the foundations for this complementary therapy to be incorporated into holistic and supportive cancer care, both for patients and those supporting them

Genomic Imprinting in Mammals: Emerging Themes and Established Theories

The epigenetic events that occur during the development of the mammalian embryo are essential for correct gene expression and cell-lineage determination. Imprinted genes are expressed from only one parental allele due to differential epigenetic marks that are established during gametogenesis. Several theories have been proposed to explain the role that genomic imprinting has played over the course of mammalian evolution, but at present it is not clear if a single hypothesis can fully account for the diversity of roles that imprinted genes play. In this review, we discuss efforts to define the extent of imprinting in the mouse genome, and suggest that different imprinted loci may have been wrought by distinct evolutionary forces. We focus on a group of small imprinted domains, which consist of paternally expressed genes embedded within introns of multiexonic transcripts, to discuss the evolution of imprinting at these loci

‘Fourth places’: the Contemporary Public Settings for Informal Social Interaction among Strangers.

This paper introduces ‘fourth places’ as an additional category of informal social settings alongside ‘third places’ (Oldenburg 1989). Through extensive empirical fieldwork on where and how social interaction among strangers occurs in the public and semi-public spaces of a contemporary masterplanned neighbourhood, this paper reveals that ‘fourth places’ are closely related to ‘third places’ in terms of social and behavioural characteristics, involving a radical departure from the routines of home and work, inclusivity, and social comfort. However, the activities, users, locations and spatial conditions that support them are very different. They are characterized by ‘in-betweenness’ in terms of spaces, activities, time and management, as well as a great sense of publicness. This paper will demonstrate that the latter conditions are effective in breaking the ‘placelessness’ and ‘fortress’ designs of newly designed urban public spaces and that, by doing so, they make ‘fourth places’ sociologically more open in order to bring strangers together. The recognition of these findings problematizes well-established urban design theories and redefines several spatial concepts for designing public space. Ultimately, the findings also bring optimism to urban design practice, offering new insights into how to design more lively and inclusive public spaces. Keywords: ‘Fourth places’, Informal Public Social Settings, Social Interaction, Strangers, Public Space Design

Measures of exposure to the Well London Phase-1 intervention and their association with health well-being and social outcomes

In this paper, we describe the measures of intervention exposure used in the cluster randomised trial of the Well London programme, a public health intervention using community engagement and community-based projects to increase physical activity, healthy eating and mental health and well-being in 20 of the most deprived neighbourhoods in London.10 No earmarked resources to support the development of these measures and associated data collection were provided to either the research team or to those delivering the interventions on the ground. Instead, these were derived from contractually specified performance management information reported quarterly by partners and by inclusion of questions seeking information about participation in the follow-up questionnaires used to measure the main trial outcomes. The exposure measures are consequently considerably less sophisticated than those used in the US studies, where earmarked funding was available

Candidate Proteins, Metabolites and Transcripts in the Biomarkers for Spinal Muscular Atrophy (BforSMA) Clinical Study

Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) is a neurodegenerative motor neuron disorder resulting from a homozygous mutation of the survival of motor neuron 1 (SMN1) gene. The gene product, SMN protein, functions in RNA biosynthesis in all tissues. In humans, a nearly identical gene, SMN2, rescues an otherwise lethal phenotype by producing a small amount of full-length SMN protein. SMN2 copy number inversely correlates with disease severity. Identifying other novel biomarkers could inform clinical trial design and identify novel therapeutic targets.To identify novel candidate biomarkers associated with disease severity in SMA using unbiased proteomic, metabolomic and transcriptomic approaches.A cross-sectional single evaluation was performed in 108 children with genetically confirmed SMA, aged 2-12 years, manifesting a broad range of disease severity and selected to distinguish factors associated with SMA type and present functional ability independent of age. Blood and urine specimens from these and 22 age-matched healthy controls were interrogated using proteomic, metabolomic and transcriptomic discovery platforms. Analyte associations were evaluated against a primary measure of disease severity, the Modified Hammersmith Functional Motor Scale (MHFMS) and to a number of secondary clinical measures.A total of 200 candidate biomarkers correlate with MHFMS scores: 97 plasma proteins, 59 plasma metabolites (9 amino acids, 10 free fatty acids, 12 lipids and 28 GC/MS metabolites) and 44 urine metabolites. No transcripts correlated with MHFMS.In this cross-sectional study, "BforSMA" (Biomarkers for SMA), candidate protein and metabolite markers were identified. No transcript biomarker candidates were identified. Additional mining of this rich dataset may yield important insights into relevant SMA-related pathophysiology and biological network associations. Additional prospective studies are needed to confirm these findings, demonstrate sensitivity to change with disease progression, and assess potential impact on clinical trial design.Clinicaltrials.gov NCT00756821