Union Graduate College

In this study, the authors use data from two online courses in principles of economics to estimate a model that predicts exam scores from independent variables of student characteristics. In one course, the final exam was proctored, and in the other course, the final exam was not proctored. In both courses, the first three exams were unproctored. If no cheating took place, the authors expected the prediction model to have the same explanatory power for all exams, and, conversely, if cheating occurred in the unproctored exam, the explanatory power would be lower. Their findings are that both across and within class, variations in the R-squared statistic suggest that cheating was taking place when the exams were not proctored.

Standard bioethics textbooks present the field to students and non-experts as a form of "applied ethics." This ahistoric and rationalistic presentation is similar to that used in philosophy of science textbooks until three decades ago. Thomas Kuhn famously critiqued this self-conception of the philosophy of science, persuading the field that it would become deeper, richer, and more philosophical, if it integrated the history of science, especially the history of scientific change, into its self-conception. This essay urges a similar reconceptualization for bioethics, arguing that the analysis of moral change ought to be integral to bioethics (and to ethics generally). It proceeds by suggesting the sterility of the ahistoric, rationalist applied ethics model of bioethics embraced by standard bioethics textbooks. It also suggests the fecundity of alternative conceptions of the bioethics that focus on the history of successful and failed attempts to negotiate moral change, and the history of multifaceted relations between moral philosophy and practical ethics.

Significance Individuals with more education tend to live longer. Genetic variants have been discovered that predict educational attainment. We tested whether a “polygenic score” based on these genetic variants could make predictions about people’s lifespan. We used data from three cohort studies (including >130,000 participants) to examine the link between offspring polygenic score for education and parental longevity. Across the studies, we found that participants with more education-linked genetic variants had longer-living parents; compared with those with the lowest genetic education scores, those with the highest scores had parents who lived on average 6 months longer. This finding suggests the hypothesis that part of the ultimate explanation for the extended longevity of better-educated people is an underlying, quantifiable, genetic propensity.

Bioethics and human rights were conceived in the aftermath of the Holocaust, when moral outrage reenergized the outmoded concepts of “medical ethics” and “natural rights,” renaming them “bioethics,” and “human rights” to give them new purpose. Originally, the principles of bioethics were a means for protecting human rights, but through a historical accident, bioethical principles came to be considered as fundamental. In this paper I reflect on the parallel development and accidental divorce of bioethics and human rights to urge their reconciliation.

Over the last decade, paternity analysis using molecular markers has revealed that observed mating systems do not necessarily correlate with reproductive systems and thus cannot provide reliable information about male reproductive success (RS). This is especially true for primate species with a complex multimale-multifemale social organization, such as mandrills (<it>Mandrillus sphinx</it>). Using molecular markers for the measurement of individual RS and a comprehensive data set comprising 193 offspring from 27 birth cohorts over a 20-year period of sampling, we investigated the social, genetic, and demographic factors that may influence the probability of paternity by dominant male mandrills, living in a semi–free-ranging colony. We observed a significant skew in RS towards dominant males, with their probability of paternity increasing as the number of adult males in the group increased, and when they were closely related to subordinate adolescent males. Conversely, the probability of dominant males siring infants decreased when the number of simultaneously tumescent females increased. Fewer offspring were sired by dominant males when female partners were closely related to them and when the relatedness between dominant and subordinate adult males increased. These two last points suggests particularly that mechanisms of kin recognition are operating to avoid the costs of inbreeding and may also reflect the lower costs to dominant males of losing conception opportunities to more closely related subordinate adult males. This study is, to our knowledge, one of the first in primates to use an integrative approach and multivariate analysis to show that multiple factors are involved in determining the probability of paternity by dominant males.

In this literature review, 10 empirical qualitative research articles published since 1999 are analyzed to better understand how researchers use Jack Mezirow's transformative learning theory as a functional tool for measuring the transformative process. The studies investigate higher education and/or professional education settings. This analysis reveals the following themes: lack of robust results on reporting transformation in highly structured transformational contexts, need for longitudinal design, difficulty in capturing and analyzing participant self-reports, and need for multiple data pathways to verify transformation. The author also suggests that the focus of transformative learning research move from assessing whether transformation has occurred and toward analyzing the transformative process for how it can inform curricular decision making and instruction.

Purpose The purpose of this research is to examine the effects of actions recommended by researchers for firms to encourage complaint voicing, and test the proposition that complaining by dissatisfied consumers would increase if only firms would make it easier to complain. Design/methodology/approach An experimental study assessed consumer reactions to scenarios in which a retailer made it easier or harder to complain by varying its refund policy, employee empowerment, access to call center representatives, and in‐store hassles to return merchandise. Consumers in an online panel completed questionnaires measuring perceived effort, likelihood of success, and complaint intentions. Findings Complaint‐friendly policies produced perceptions of lower anticipated difficulty and increased chances of successful redress. However, only lenient refund policy significantly influenced complaint voicing intentions. While most policies designed to make complaining easier had limited impact on complaint voicing, measured perceptions of complaint difficulty were significant predictors of complaining intentions. Research limitations/implications In future studies, researchers should examine these variables in non‐retail settings where getting a refund does not dominate the consumer's decision to voice a complaint. Practical implications The results call into question the proposition that complaint voicing would increase if only firms would make complaining easier. Managers should focus on assuring customers of liberal refund policies if they complain. Originality/value By focusing on actions that the firm can undertake to improve the probability of consumer complaining, this paper departs from the literature on antecedents of complaining behavior, which has focused on individual difference factors that affect the probability of complaining, variables that lie outside managerial control.

I was the graduate student that Albert Jonsen so aptly describes. Bronx born and educated at the City College of New York, I emigrated to the Midwest to study at the Minnesota Center for the Philosophy of Science, where May Brodbeck, Herbert Feigl and other “logical positivists” were engaging in an ongoing dialogue with postpositivists like Paul Feyerabend and Karl Popper. In this environment, I studied philosophy of science, epistemology, and metaethics—the epistemology and logic of ethical concepts and language. I even wrote my thesis on the ur-text of the metaethical turn, G. E. Moore's Principia Ethica . Then, like other epistemologists and metaethicists, “a public disaster, the American military involvement in Southeast Asia,” as well as the burgeoning civil rights movement, drew me into the sphere of public debate.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to extend research on customer loyalty status, external equity, and satisfaction with service recovery. Most people accept that firms give special treatment to their “best” customers; but after service failures, will they accept firms' offering better compensation to loyalty program members? Design/methodology/approach An experiment was conducted involving mobile telephone service failure scenarios affecting two similar customers; the customer received either identical or one‐half the compensation of a referent customer, who was described as either a member or non‐member of the firm's loyalty program. Participants were randomly assigned to conditions in a 2×2 design, completing questionnaires that measured satisfaction with service recovery. Findings The paper finds that when both focal and referent customers received equal service recovery, loyalty program status had no effect. When the referent customer received greater compensation, respondents were very dissatisfied with the outcome, but were significantly less dissatisfied if the referent customer was a loyalty program member. Research limitations/implications Although respondents were students, 97 percent used mobile telephones and experienced similar service problems. Practical implications As communications among firms' customers increase (blogs, online communities), they can compare one another's complaint outcomes. Some inequity in service recovery may be tolerated because of the beneficiary's loyalty program status. Originality/value Consumers consider loyalty of other customers when judging fairness of firms' service recovery. Inequity has a powerful effect on satisfaction with recovery initiatives, but the negative impact is moderated by loyalty program status; this paper makes a contribution by showing how inequity and customer loyalty interact.

Bioethicists function in an environment in which their peers--healthcare executives, lawyers, nurses, physicians--assert the integrity of their fields through codes of professional ethics. Is it time for bioethics to assert its integrity by developing a code of ethics? Answering in the affirmative, this paper lays out a case by reviewing the historical nature and function of professional codes of ethics. Arguing that professional codes are aggregative enterprises growing in response to a field's historical experiences, it asserts that bioethics now needs to assert its integrity and independence and has already developed a body of formal statements that could be aggregated to create a comprehensive code of ethics for bioethics. A Draft Model Aggregated Code of Ethics for Bioethicists is offered in the hope that analysis and criticism of this draft code will promote further discussion of the nature and content of a code of ethics for bioethicists.

Methylene blue (MB) can be employed as a photo-activatable antimicrobial drug in photodynamic therapy (PDT) due to its ability to release oxygen free radicals upon photo-activation. However, its poor ability to penetrate bacterial cell walls and bacterial biofilms limits its antimicrobial activity. To overcome these limitations, we propose some formulations of MB based on different cationic liposomes. The liposome-MB systems were characterized using dynamic light scattering (DLS), zeta potential analysis and UV-visible spectroscopy. Their ability to penetrate inside the cytoplasm of E. coli, taken as a bacterial model for Gram-negative strains, was investigated through laser scanning confocal microscopy (CLSM) and compared to the penetration of naked MB. Then, MB-loaded liposomes were photo-activated and their antimicrobial activity was tested against E. coli, showing a strong improvement with respect to MB solutions. The liposomal formulations dramatically enhance MB penetration in bacterial biofilms and reduce the inflammatory response due to lipopolysaccharide exposure in mammalian cells. The observed antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory efficacies show a clear correlation with some structural features of the carriers, namely the size and the surface charge density. Overall, these results provide fundamental knowledge that enables the design of novel efficient PDT treatments, which potentially overcome the rising incidence of antibiotic resistance of bacterial strains.

Abstract Although a considerable amount of research has investigated consumer knowledge of individual prices, consumer knowledge of marketer pricing tactics (e.g., partitioned prices, pennies a day) has received only limited attention. In the current research, a model depicting hypothesized antecedents of consumer knowledge (both accurate and self‐perceived) regarding pricing tactics marketers use is proposed and then investigated in two studies. Tests of the model provided support for the hypothesized antecedents of both objective and subjective pricing tactic knowledge and suggested that experience is a key moderator of the objective pricing tactic knowledge–subjective pricing tactic knowledge relationship. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

A unique multi-part qualitative study methodology is presented from a study which tracked the transformative journeys of four career-changing women from STEM fields into secondary education. The article analyzes the study’s use of archived writing, journaling, participant-generated photography, interviews, member-checking, and reflexive analytical memos. An exploration into the interconnectedness of the methodologies used reveals a robust framework from which the first stages of grounded theory emerged. A detailed explanation of the methodological aspects of conducting the study is discussed with the purpose of making this combination of qualitative methods replicable.

In this study we gathered data on the misconduct policies of social science journals and combined it with the data from our previous study on journal misconduct policies, which did not include enough social science journals for data analysis. Consistent with our earlier finding, impact factor of the journal was the only variable significantly associated with whether a journal had a formal (written) misconduct policy with an odds-ratio of 1.72 (p < 0.01). We did not find that type of science (physical, biomedical, or social) or publisher had a significant effect on whether a journal had a policy. Another important finding is that less than half of the journals that responded to the survey had a formal misconduct policy.

&lt;p class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-align: justify; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt; mso-pagination: none; mso-add-space: auto;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: &amp;quot;Times New Roman&amp;quot;,&amp;quot;serif&amp;quot;; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 10pt;"&gt;Many organizations are taking advantage of the opportunities to utilize new technologies to become more effective and efficient.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;One of the newer types of approaches to be used is the &amp;ldquo;virtual team.&amp;rdquo;&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;These are teams that are comprised of members who do not work at the same place or even at the same time.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;They may be spread across many time zones and may be located all over the world.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;These types of teams are made possible by advances in computer-mediated communication and software that allows people to work collaboratively on projects without being co-located or even working at the same time.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;Obviously, managing teams of this sort presents many, and sometimes unique, challenges.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;This paper addresses these issues, analyzes them, and offers suggestions for relevant management strategies.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Abstract. This study extends prior research on the average level of moral development in public accounting by examining five large accounting firms and three staff levels. The research is important because it highlights the need to include auditors from several firms in research designs, provides evidence of differences in moral development among public accounting firms, and profiles the professions' average level of moral development for three levels. The data are from 494 managers and seniors (204 females and 290 males) from five Big Six firms. Using the Defining Issues Test (Rest 1979a) to measure moral development, several results were noted. First, the results indicate a difference in the average level of moral development among firms, suggesting that use of subjects from only one firm inhibits the generalizability of findings regarding moral development. Second, female managers are at a significantly higher average level of moral development than male managers. In fact, the average scores for male managers fell between those expected for senior high school and college students. The data suggest that a greater percentage of high‐moral‐development males and low‐moral‐development females are leaving public accounting than their respective opposites. These results indicate that the profession has retained, through advancement, males who are potentially less sensitive to the ethical implications of various issues. The analysis also indicates that Kohlberg's (1969) theory of moral development is not biased towards the thought processes of males because female auditors did not score lower on the Defining Issues Test.

Several training programs sponsored by the NIH/Fogarty International Center's International Research Ethics Education and Curriculum Development Program offer online graduate-level courses in research ethics to participants in lowand middle-income countries. This paper describes the evaluation of four of these online courses and recommendations for improvements to achieve the highest-quality design and delivery. We used an evaluation matrix consisting of 95 criteria based on recommended best practices in eLearning. Our results showed that these courses are developing or meeting nearly 73% of the criteria, while they are not meeting approximately 21% of the criteria. Together, one or more of the courses are developing or meeting 89 of the 95 criteria. These results suggest that the necessary skills and expertise exist in these programs to bring all of the eLearning courses close to 100% proficiency by sharing a common set of best practices. This paper is part of a collection of articles analyzing the Fogarty International Center's International Research Ethics Education and Curriculum Development Program.

An algorithm is described for estimating arc and path criticalities in stochastic activity networks by combining Monte Carlo simulation with exact analysis conditioned on node release times. These estimators are proved to be unbiased and to have lower variance than the corresponding standard Monte Carlo estimators. The algorithm is applied to a variety of standard and randomly generated test networks to establish that the estimators are significantly and robustly more efficient than the standard estimators when run time and statistical efficiency are properly combined.

The automobile sector is one of the major consumers in India. Vehicles become the inevitable component in our day today life. It plays a vital role in peoples comfort. This growth of vehicles results in exponentially increasing pollution, which becomes a significant cause of environmental issues.Additionally, depletion of fuels and growth of its prices emerge a need to develop vehicles that would run without affecting the environment, i.e. with clean and sustainable energy sources. Electric vehicles (EVs), which run with the battery as a prime source, are a present trend in the automobile industry. This work presents the comparative analysis for 3 operating speeds of Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor (PMSM) of 3 kW, 48 V for EV applications using magnet software and the performance is verified.

This article evaluates the accuracy of approximate confidence intervals for parameters and quantiles of the smallest extreme value and normal distributions. The findings also apply to the Weibull and the lognormal distributions. The interval estimates are based on (a) the asymptotic normality of the maximum likelihood estimator, (b) the asymptotic x 2 distribution of the likelihood ratio (LR) statistic, (c) a mean and variance correction to the signed square roots of the LR statistic, and (d) the Bartlett correction to the LR statistic. The extensive Monte Carlo results about true error probabilities and average lengths under various degrees of censoring show advantages of the LR-based intervals. For complete or moderately censored samples, the mean and variance correction to the LR statistic gives nearly exact and symmetric error probabilities. In small samples with heavy censoring, the Bartlett correction tends to give conservative error probabilities, whereas the uncorrected LR interval is often anticonservative. The results also indicate that LR-based methods have longer interval lengths than intervals based on the asymptotic normality of the maximum likelihood estimator.