Science and Engineering Ethics最新文献

{"title":"Healthy and Happy? An Ethical Investigation of Emotion Recognition and Regulation Technologies (ERR) within Ambient Assisted Living (AAL).","authors":"Kris Vera Hartmann, Giovanni Rubeis, Nadia Primc","doi":"10.1007/s11948-024-00470-8","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11948-024-00470-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) refers to technologies that track daily activities of persons in need of care to enhance their autonomy and minimise their need for assistance. New technological developments show an increasing effort to integrate automated emotion recognition and regulation (ERR) into AAL systems. These technologies aim to recognise emotions via different sensors and, eventually, to regulate emotions defined as \"negative\" via different forms of intervention. Although these technologies are already implemented in other areas, AAL stands out by its tendency to enable an inconspicuous 24-hour surveillance in the private living space of users who rely on the technology to maintain a certain degree of independence in their daily activities. The combination of both technologies represents a new dimension of emotion recognition in a potentially vulnerable group of users. Our paper aims to provide an ethical contextualisation of the novel combination of both technologies. We discuss different concepts of emotions, namely Basic Emotion Theory (BET) and the Circumplex Model of Affect (CMA), that form the basis of ERR and provide an overview over the current technological developments in AAL. We highlight four ethical issues that specifically arise in the context of ERR in AAL systems, namely concerns regarding (1) the reductionist view of emotions, (2) solutionism as an underlying assumption of these technologies, (3) the privacy and autonomy of users and their emotions, (4) the tendency of machine learning techniques to normalise and generalise human behaviour and emotional reactions.</p>","PeriodicalId":49564,"journal":{"name":"Science and Engineering Ethics","volume":"30 1","pages":"2"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-01-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10811057/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139547355","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Potential Issues in Mandating a Disclosure of Institutional Investigation in Retraction Notices.","authors":"Bor Luen Tang","doi":"10.1007/s11948-024-00468-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11948-024-00468-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>A retraction notice is a formal announcement for the removal of a paper from the literature, which is a weighty matter. Xu et al. (Science and Engineering Ethics, 29(4), 25 2023) reported that 73.7% of retraction notices indexed by the Web of Science (1927-2019) provided no information about institutional investigations that may have led to the retractions, and recommended that Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) retraction guidelines should make it mandatory to disclose institutional investigations leading to retractions in such notices. While this recommendation would add to the transparency of the retraction process, a blanket mandate as such could be potentially problematic. For research misconduct (RM)-positive cases, a mandatory investigative disclosure may be abused by some to deflect responsibility. More importantly, a mandatory disclosure could harm authors and institutions in RM-negative cases (i.e. those stemming from honest errors with no misconduct). I illustrate with case vignettes the potential epistemic injustice and confusion that a mandate for investigation disclosure in retraction notices could incur, and suggest a more nuanced approach to its implementation.</p>","PeriodicalId":49564,"journal":{"name":"Science and Engineering Ethics","volume":"30 1","pages":"1"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-01-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10805848/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139522120","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Scientists’ Views on the Ethics, Promises and Practices of Synthetic Biology: A Qualitative Study of Australian Scientific Practice","authors":"Jacqueline Dalziell, Wendy Rogers","doi":"10.1007/s11948-023-00461-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-023-00461-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Synthetic biology is a broad term covering multiple scientific methodologies, technologies, and practices. Pairing biology with engineering, synbio seeks to design and build biological systems, either through improving living cells by adding in new functions, or creating new structures by combining natural and synthetic components. As with all new technologies, synthetic biology raises a number of ethical considerations. In order to understand what these issues might be, and how they relate to those covered in ethics literature on synbio, we conducted an interview study with practicing synthetic biologists affiliated with a synthetic biology centre in Australia. Scientists identified a range of ethical challenges germane to the field, including precarious employment, pressures from industry, gender inequity, and the negative effects of the hyping of synbio. These challenges differed markedly from those identified in the ethics literature, whose treatment of the harms and benefits of synbio remains largely speculative and abstract. In our discussion of the pragmatic, every day ethical issues synthetic biologists face, we illustrate how issues of waste or research integrity play pivotal roles in everything from lived experiences in the laboratory, to long-term research trajectories guiding the field. In a confirmation of the ethical relevance of our participant’s views on the field, we argue that the subjects they raise must be included in any ethical analysis of synbio as a field.</p>","PeriodicalId":49564,"journal":{"name":"Science and Engineering Ethics","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138575809","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Pedagogical Orientations and Evolving Responsibilities of Technological Universities: A Literature Review of the History of Engineering Education.","authors":"Diana Adela Martin, Gunter Bombaerts, Maja Horst, Kyriaki Papageorgiou, Gianluigi Viscusi","doi":"10.1007/s11948-023-00460-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11948-023-00460-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Current societal changes and challenges demand a broader role of technological universities, thus opening the question of how their role evolved over time and how to frame their current responsibility. In response to urgent calls for debating and redefining the identity of contemporary technological universities, this paper has two aims. The first aim is to identify the key characteristics and orientations marking the development of technological universities, as recorded in the history of engineering education. The second aim is to articulate the responsibility of contemporary technological universities given their different orientations and characteristics. For this, we first provide a non-systematic literature review of the key pedagogical orientations of technological universities, grounded in the history of engineering education. The five major orientations of technological universities presented in the paper are technical, economic, social, political, and ecological. We then use this historical survey to articulate the responsibilities of contemporary technological universities reflecting the different orientations. Technological universities can promote and foster the development of scientific, professional, civic, legal, or intra- and inter- generational responsibility. We argue that responsibility is not specific to any particular orientation, such that the concept is broadened to complement each orientation or mix of orientations of a technological university. Our contribution thus serves as a call for technological universities to self-reflect on their mission and identity, by offering a lens for identifying the orientations they currently foster and making explicit the responsibility arising from their current orientation or the ones they strive to cultivate.</p>","PeriodicalId":49564,"journal":{"name":"Science and Engineering Ethics","volume":"29 6","pages":"40"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10698075/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138488888","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Research Misconduct Investigations in China's Science Funding System.","authors":"Li Tang, Linan Wang, Guangyuan Hu","doi":"10.1007/s11948-023-00459-9","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11948-023-00459-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>As stewards of public money, government funding agencies have the obligation and responsibility to uphold the integrity of funded research. Despite an increasing amount of empirical studies examining research-related misconduct, a majority of these studies focus on retracted publications. How agencies spot funding-relevant wrongdoing and what sanctions the offenders face remain largely unexplored. This is particularly true for public funding agencies in emerging science powers. To amend this oversight, we retrieved and analyzed all publicized investigation results from China's largest basic research funding agency over the period from 2005 to 2021. Our findings reveal that both the \"police patrol\" and \"fire alarm\" approaches are used to identify misconduct and deter funding-related fraud in China. The principal triggers for investigations are journal article retractions, whistleblowing, and plagiarism detection software. Among the six funding-related misconduct types publicized and punished, the top three are: (1) fraudulent papers, (2) information fabrication and/or falsification in the research proposal, and (3) proposal plagiarism. The most common administrative sanctions are debarment and reclamation of grants. This article argues that more systematic research and cooperation among stakeholders is needed to cultivate research integrity in emerging science powers like China. Specific training and education should be provided for young scientists to help them avoid the pitfall of academic misconduct.</p>","PeriodicalId":49564,"journal":{"name":"Science and Engineering Ethics","volume":"29 6","pages":"39"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138292247","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Survey Study on Knowledge and Attitude Toward the Ethics Committee and Research Ethical Practices Among Researchers From Kuwait.","authors":"Rashmi Shiju, Smitha Thankachan, Ayesha Akhil, Prem Sharma, Abdullah Bennakhi","doi":"10.1007/s11948-023-00458-w","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11948-023-00458-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The integrity of research findings and the safety of participants who voluntarily consent to participate in research studies must be assured through ethical approaches. Additionally, ethical guidelines and the ethics committee protect participants from unfair practices by the research team. Therefore, this study aims to assess the knowledge and attitudes toward the ethics committee and research ethical practices among the researchers of a diabetes institute in Kuwait. An anonymous survey was conducted through an online questionnaire using Microsoft Forms. The study had a response rate of 86%. Among the 55 participants in this study, 43 (78%) had ethics training. Researchers involved in more than four research projects were shown to have a much higher awareness of the ethics committee and its role than researchers involved in no projects. Approximately 90% of researchers had training in research ethics and were knowledgeable about informed consent forms and assent, as well as additional protections for vulnerable populations. Ninety-eight percent of respondents were of the view that an ethics committee was necessary. Our study concluded that most of the researchers at the institute were aware of the role of the ethics committee, and ethical principles. However, we recommend that continuous and customized training on research ethics should be provided.</p>","PeriodicalId":49564,"journal":{"name":"Science and Engineering Ethics","volume":"29 6","pages":"37"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-10-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10602982/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50163388","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Playing Brains: The Ethical Challenges Posed by Silicon Sentience and Hybrid Intelligence in DishBrain.","authors":"Stephen R Milford, David Shaw, Georg Starke","doi":"10.1007/s11948-023-00457-x","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11948-023-00457-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The convergence of human and artificial intelligence is currently receiving considerable scholarly attention. Much debate about the resulting Hybrid Minds focuses on the integration of artificial intelligence into the human brain through intelligent brain-computer interfaces as they enter clinical use. In this contribution we discuss a complementary development: the integration of a functional in vitro network of human neurons into an in silico computing environment.To do so, we draw on a recent experiment reporting the creation of silico-biological intelligence as a case study (Kagan et al., 2022b). In this experiment, multielectrode arrays were plated with stem cell-derived human neurons, creating a system which the authors call DishBrain. By embedding the system into a virtual game-world, neural clusters were able to receive electrical input signals from the game-world and to respond appropriately with output signals from pre-assigned motor regions. Using this design, the authors demonstrate how the DishBrain self-organises and successfully learns to play the computer game 'Pong', exhibiting 'sentient' and intelligent behaviour in its virtual environment.The creation of such hybrid, silico-biological intelligence raises numerous ethical challenges. Following the neuroscientific framework embraced by the authors themselves, we discuss the arising ethical challenges in the context of Karl Friston's Free Energy Principle, focusing on the risk of creating synthetic phenomenology. Following the DishBrain's creator's neuroscientific assumptions, we highlight how DishBrain's design may risk bringing about artificial suffering and argue for a congruently cautious approach to such synthetic biological intelligence.</p>","PeriodicalId":49564,"journal":{"name":"Science and Engineering Ethics","volume":"29 6","pages":"38"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-10-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10602981/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50163389","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Systematic Review of the 2016 National Academy of Engineering Exemplary Ethics Programs: Revisions to a Coding Framework.","authors":"Justin L Hess, Alison J Kerr, Athena Lin, Andrew Chung","doi":"10.1007/s11948-023-00456-y","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11948-023-00456-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Engineering ethics is a required aspect of accredited ABET programs, but there is widespread variation in how ethics is taught, to what ends, and how those ends are assessed. This variation makes it challenging to identify practices for teaching ethics to engineers aligned with extant practices in the field. In this study, we revise a recent coding framework by reviewing exemplary engineering ethics programs recognized by the National Academy of Engineering in 2016, or what we refer to as \"exemplars.\" We pursue two primary objectives: (1) To apply and revise a prior coding framework to codify ethics learning objectives, instructional strategies, and assessment strategies in engineering education; and (2) To use the revised coding framework to identify trends in learning objectives, instructional strategies, and assessment strategies of NAE exemplars. We employ systemic review procedures to update the coding framework using 24 of 25 exemplars as a data source. The updated framework includes four primary categories associated with learning objectives, instructional strategies, assessment data collection strategies, and assessment design characteristics. Results indicate that ethical sensitivity or awareness was present in every exemplar as a learning objective, often alongside ethical reasoning-based learning objectives and the formation of professional skills. Exemplars employed numerous instructional strategies in tandem, as we coded eight out of 18 instructional strategies among at least half of the exemplars. Assignments/homework and summative reflections were the most oft-used sources of assessment data. Due to our challenges in coding assessment approaches, we offer practical suggestions for assessing engineering ethics instruction which are based on many of our coding discussions. We hope that this coding framework, the results classifying exemplary features of the NAE programs, and our practical suggestions can guide future instructors as they design, classify, assess, and report their approaches to engineering ethics education.</p>","PeriodicalId":49564,"journal":{"name":"Science and Engineering Ethics","volume":"29 6","pages":"36"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49693344","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mary Blair-Loy and Erin A. Cech: Misconceiving Merit: Paradoxes in Excellence and Devotion in Academic Science and Engineering : University of Chicago Press, 2022.","authors":"Andrea R Gammon","doi":"10.1007/s11948-023-00455-z","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11948-023-00455-z","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49564,"journal":{"name":"Science and Engineering Ethics","volume":"29 5","pages":"35"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41217831","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Genetically Engineered Foods and Moral Absolutism: A Representative Study from Germany.","authors":"Johanna Jauernig,&nbsp;Matthias Uhl,&nbsp;Gabi Waldhof","doi":"10.1007/s11948-023-00454-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11948-023-00454-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>There is an ongoing debate about genetic engineering (GE) in food production. Supporters argue that it makes crops more resilient to stresses, such as drought or pests, and should be considered by researchers as a technology to address issues of global food security, whereas opponents put forward that GE crops serve only the economic interests of transnational agrifood-firms and have not yet delivered on their promises to address food shortage and nutrient supply. To address discourse failure regarding the GE debate, research needs to understand better what drives the divergent positions and which moral attitudes fuel the mental models of GE supporters and opponents. Hence, this study investigates moral attitudes regarding GE opposition and support in Germany. Results show that GE opponents are significantly more absolutist than supporters and significantly less likely to hold outcome-based views. Furthermore, GE opponents are more willing to donate for preventing GE admission than supporters are willing to donate for promoting GE admission. Our results shed light on why the divide between opponents and supporters in the German GE debate could remain stark and stable for so long.</p>","PeriodicalId":49564,"journal":{"name":"Science and Engineering Ethics","volume":"29 5","pages":"34"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10482798/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10185973","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}