Research misconduct in the fields of ethics and philosophy: researchers’ perceptions in Spain

This is the Author’s Original Manuscript (AOM) (also called a “preprint”) sent to review to Science and Engineering Ethics on 11/10/2020. The final version of the article was published online at SEE on 21/01/2021. The online version is available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-021-00278-wEmpirical studies have revealed a disturbing prevalence of research misconduct in a wide variety of disciplines, although not, to date, in the areas of ethics and philosophy. This study aims to provide empirical evidence on perceptions of how serious a problem research misconduct is in these two disciplines in Spain, particularly regarding the effects that the model used to evaluate academics’ research performance may have on their ethical behaviour. The methodological triangulation applied in the study combines a questionnaire, a debate at the annual meeting of scientific association, and in-depth interviews. Of the 541 questionnaires sent out, 201 responses were obtained (37.1% of the total sample), with a significant difference in the participation of researchers in philosophy (30.5%) and in ethics (52.8%); 26 researchers took part in the debate and 14 interviews were conducted. The questionnaire results reveal that 91.5% of the respondents considered research misconduct to be on the rise; 63.2% considered at least three of the fraudulent practices referred to in the study to be commonplace, and 84.1% identified two or more such practices. The researchers perceived a high prevalence of duplicate publication (66.5%) and self-plagiarism (59.0%), use of personal influence (57.5%) and citation manipulation (44.0%), in contrast to a low perceived incidence of data falsification or fabrication (10.0%). The debate and the interviews corroborated these data. Researchers associated the spread of these misconducts with the research evaluation model applied in Spain

Cholinergic control of human airways in vitro following extrinsic denervation of the human respiratory tract by heart-lung transplantation

In heart-lung transplantation (HLT), the airways have been assumed to be denervated since cholinergic, adrenergic, and sensory nerves are severed. Challenge studies of such patients suggest that there is an increase in airway responsiveness to inhaled cholinergic agonists, which may be explained by denervation hypersensitivity of muscarinic receptors on airway smooth muscle. We have studied the cholinergic control of airways from lungs removed from five patients (8 to 31 yr of age) undergoing retransplantation because of rejection-related bronchiolitis, with time since transplantation ranging from 12 to 32 months. These airways were compared with airways obtained from eight heart donors (24 to 42 yr of age) and from five patients undergoing surgical lobectomy for bronchial carcinoma (54 to 72 yr of age). Bronchial rings (distal lobar and subsegmental) were mounted in organ baths and isometric contractile responses measured. Contractile responses to acetylcholine (ACh, 10 nM to 10 mM) and to electrical field stimulation (EFS) (40 V, 0.5 ms, 1 to 64 Hz for 15 s) were determined. Transplant and control airways showed the same response to ACh, with mean EC50 values of 61.0 ± 0.32 μM for HLT patients, 57.6 ± 0.24 μM for donor patients, and 48.7 ± 1.2 μM for lobectomy patients, suggesting no denervation hypersensitivity of muscarinic receptors. EFS, which activates postganglionic cholinergic nerves, caused similar frequency responses in both transplant and control airways, suggesting that postganglionic nerves are intact. [3H]quinuclidinyl benzilate binding to membranes prepared from lung was performed to determine muscarinic binding characteristics. There was a small but insignificant increase in receptor density (B(max) = 61.4 ± 7.5 in HLT and 46.1 ± 7.1 fmol/mg protein in control patients) and no difference in the binding affinity (K(d) = 0.48 ± 0.08 in HLT and 0.37 ± 0.06 nM in control patients), indicating no alteration in muscarinic receptors with denervation. We conclude that surgically denervated human airways from lung transplant patients have normally functioning postganglionic nerves and no change in cholinergic responsiveness or receptors, presumably because parasympathetic neurons survive. Denervation hypersensitivity cannot account for the increased cholinergic responsiveness observed in these patients.link_to_subscribed_fulltex