秦代文化工程与阴阳五行学派

始皇时代,随着燕齐文学方士的大量涌入,邹衍之学与燕齐方术西传秦国,并对秦文化产生了深刻影响。在燕齐文学方士的鼓动下,始皇帝不仅接受了邹衍阴阳五行学派的思想,而且营造了钟鐻金人、极庙复道、始皇陵寝等大型工程。在这些工程背后,都藏有与邹衍阴阳五行学派相关的丰富文化隐喻。     

Patients’ competence to consent to neurobiological research

Progress has been made defining the standards for determining subjects’ competence to consent to research: abilities to communicate a choice, understand relevant information, appreciate the nature of the situation and its consequences, and manipulate information rationally. Available data show clearly that persons with mental illness display a spectrum of decisionmaking abilities, with many performing well, but some doing quite poorly. More attention now is required to identifying the degree of capacity required for competent consent to projects with varying risk/benefit characteristics. Practical means are also required for screening for subjects with impaired capacities, attempting to improve their performance, and providing substituted consent when their deficiencies are intractable.     

Fundraising of Nonprofit Organizations: Specifics and New Possibilities

Fundraising can be viewed as a systematic activity aimed primarily at raising financial resources for the activities of either an organization or an individual. The inconsistency of this effort usually cannot be blamed on internal factors within an organization, but rather phenomena of a macroeconomic, legislative or societal nature. In an effort to gain an insight into the measure of utilizing fundraising principles in nonprofit organizations, extensive research was conducted for the ninth time among nonprofit organizations in the Czech Republic, the sample of which consisted of 313 fully completed questionnaires. Based on the research results focusing on fundraising, measures were proposed to expand the possibilities of ensuring effective multisource funding for a selected nonprofit organization. One of these options and at the same time the current trend in marketing not only for the nonprofit sector is crowdfunding. Crowdfunding is a new concept of funding projects that has seen a significantly growing trend in the fundraising is part of marketing activities, or at least it is very closely connected with them.     

Student Projects in Medicine: A Lesson in Science and Ethics

Regulation of biomedical research is the subject of considerable debate in the bioethics and health policy worlds. The ethics and governance of medical student projects is becoming an increasingly important topic in its own right, especially in the U.K., where there are periodic calls to change it. My main claim is that there seems to be no good reason for treating student projects differently from projects led by qualified and more experienced scientists and hence no good grounds for changing the current system of ethics review. I first suggest that the educational objectives cannot be met without laying down standards of good science, whatever they may be. Weak science is unnecessary for educational purposes, and it is, in any case, unlikely to produce good researchers in the future. Furthermore, it is curious to want to change the system of ethics review specifically for students when it is the science that is at stake, and when the science now falls largely outside the ethics remit. I further show that ethics review is nevertheless important since students carry a new potential conflict of interests that warrants independent oversight which supervisory support does not offer. This potential conflict may become more morally troublesome the greater the risks to the subjects of the research, and students may impose greater risks on their subjects (relative to professional researchers) by virtue of being inexperienced, whatever the nature of the project. Pragmatic concerns may finally be allayed by organizing the current system more efficiently at critical times of the university calendar.     

Developing a collaborative methodology for research with community groups

This ‘short communication’ considers four different methodological approaches for ethnographic research projects that engage community groups when the research topic is contested amongst group members. I locate my comments in the context of a proposed project on concepts of gender in the ‘mythopoetic’ men's movement, and on feminist responses to these concepts; however, many of the points raised are applicable to a range of community projects. I discuss benefits and drawbacks of the following candidate methodologies: participant-observation (in this case, with a male partner researcher who is an ‘insider’); participatory-action research; reflexive ethnographic interviewing; and a collaborative documentary that incorporates aspects of video ethnography. A key consideration throughout is the positioning of the researcher and participants. I make a case for the uniquely collaborative potential of video when quite diverse perspectives are part and parcel of a proposed research agenda.     

Resource allocation and project selection: Control of r & d under dynamic process of data improvement

This paper deals with the problem of optimal control of R&D. The fundamental aspects of this problem are viewed as: uncertainty about economic parameters of new technology (or new activity, e.g. a search for new oil fields) explored by a group of parallel projects attempting to make advances in this technology as well as improve economic data; allocation of investments among rival projects under a given total budget; timing of the ultimate selection of new technology (activity) according to the most successful project. The process of data improvement (PDI) is described as a (random) process of reducing the intervals of uncertainty, the rate of data improvement being controlled, in effect, by the investment policy. A stationary dynamic model with infinite horizon of planning and with the criterion of total discounted costs is developed. The model is carefully investigated from the economic point of view, and some new effects are discovered. It is demonstrated that uncertainty may be the source of additional gain; the bigger the initial uncertainty, the bigger the gain may be under optimal control. This effect is based on PDI, the economic background of which is presented as multiplication of the expected gain over time, which is typical for the classical macromodels of economics.Optimal continuous control is constructed at every time moment, and answers to two main questions are given:(1) either to prolong R & D or to make ultimate selection of one project, (2) how to allocate resources among the rival projects in the case of R&D prolongation. The last question is answered on the basis of profitability indices that relate efficiencies of PDI for particular projects to the costs of information.     

The nature and quality of engineering research

Engineering is the application oí science to design and development of products intended for useful social purposes. Engineering research consists of a wide variety of activities ranging from study of material properties for possible future application to the testing necessary to establish design parameters or to verify the adequacy of new design concepts. Professors of engineering are generally expected to conduct research, preferably in the “engineering sciences”; (e.g. thermodynamics, metallurgy), to publish their results, and find their own sources of funding. Many private corporations maintain departments of research and development, the findings of which are often proprietary and not subject to peer review. Managers of engineering research projects attempt to assure the quality of their results by “instrumental”; or “organizational”; methods. Instrumental methods assure accuracy in data collection and processing, while organization methods maintain a work environment conducive to creativity and integrity among researchers. Organizational conditions can affect research quality adversely, by giving rise to ethical problems associated with conflicts between corporate interests and those of individuals.     

Three Paradigms in Lu Xun Research and Contemporary Value Options

Research on Lu Xun is never simply the analysis of an individual writer, but constitutes an understanding of the cultural attributes represented by Lu Xun himself and his writings. Likewise, the evaluation of research on Lu Xun is never a simple evaluation of academic history, but rather a social evaluation associated with the value orientations of those times. At present, with the return of academic logic and the growing tendency toward private research, a noteworthy divergence of standpoints and evaluations of Lu Xun research has emerged. At the same time, as a prominent discipline that has been over-interpreted, research on Lu Xun is demonstrating a tendency toward redundancy and triviality. Three fundamental paradigms are commonly employed in research on Lu Xun: historical research that attempts to explore historical materials; academic research that focuses on knowledge interpretation and aesthetic evaluation; and contemporary research that pursues the contemporary meaning and values of Lu Xun’s ideas. Each paradigm offers an insight into and understanding of Lu Xun’s rich and complex spiritual world; each presents a paradox of one kind or the other; and each performs different value functions.     

Three Paradigms in Lu Xun Research and Contemporary Value Options

鲁迅研究从来不是单纯的个体作家分析，而是对其人其文所表征的一种文化属性的理解；对于鲁迅研究的评价也从来不是一种单纯的学术史的评价，而是与一个时代的价值取向相关联的社会评价。当下，在学术逻辑回归与学术民间性凸显的态势下，鲁迅研究的立场和价值评价出现了明显分野。同时，作为一种被过度阐释的显学，鲁迅研究存在着研究的重复性和细小化倾向。以史料挖掘为主的历史性研究、以知识阐释和审美评价为主的学问化研究、以追求思想的当下意义与价值为主的当代性研究，是鲁迅研究的三种基本范式。每一种研究范式都是对鲁迅丰富复杂的精神世界的开掘和理解，同时又都存在着某种程度的悖论和不同的价值功能。     

HIV Infections as Unanticipated Problems During Medical Research in Africa

Regulations and guidelines in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom require institutions that manage medical research on humans anywhere in the world to protect research participants. Analyses of published data from six medical research projects in Africa funded by governments and other organizations in the above countries reveal HIV infections statistically linked to participation in research. Given this evidence, regulations and guidelines obligate institutions that fund, manage, or regulate these projects to investigate to determine if invasive procedures in research clinics infected participants. Findings from such investigations could have a broad and beneficial impact on health care safety in Africa.     

Inaction over retractions of identified fraudulent publications: ongoing weakness in the system of scientific self-correction

Published articles may be retracted when their findings are no longer considered reliable due to honest error, publication misconduct, or research misconduct. This article focuses on the case of a single serial violator of research and publication ethics in anesthesiology and critical care, which is widely publicized. A chain of events led to detection of misconduct that had substantial impact on the evidence base for the safety of hydroxyethyl starch, an intravenous artificial colloid solution, which is reflected in current guidelines on fluid management and volume resuscitation. As citations to retracted works continue to be a cause for concern, this article reviews the retraction status of this author’s published articles to determine whether sufficient action has been taken to retract his body of work. Results show that retraction practices are not uniform and that guidelines for retraction are still not being fully implemented, resulting in retractions of insufficient quantity and quality. As retractions continue to emerge for the author’s publications, with ten more since 2011, and as they are generally increasing, these data on retractions not only provide findings of misconduct, but also allow us to make inferences about ongoing weaknesses in the system of scientific literature.     

Multisystemic therapy project in Sweden: what factors affect the tendency of social workers to refer subjects to the research project?

This article examines some of the factors that may have affected the tendency for social workers to refer adolescents to a randomised controlled study of multisystemic therapy (MST). If we are to improve integration between researchers and the clinical setting in the future, it is important to consider those factors that affect implementation of research projects and evidence-based treatment methods. Evidence-based methods that lack the support of clinicians will have problems surviving in clinical practice. In the present study, we found that social workers' treatment ideology was associated with referral rate. Social workers who sympathised with the ideology on which MST is based referred patients to the project to a greater extent. Moreover, we found that the perception of a good work climate and good social support correlated positively with the referral rate from the unit. The results suggest that when implementing evidence-based methods, or research projects on treatment methods, researchers should consider whether the method is consistent with the current treatment ideology within the unit. Working conditions in the unit should also be considered.     

Research Misconduct and Crime Lessons from Criminal Science on Preventing Misconduct and Promoting Integrity

Crime is naught but misdirected energy. So long as every institution of today, economic, political, social, and moral, conspires to misdirect human energy into wrong channels; so long as most people are out of place doing the things they hate to do, living a life they loathe to live, crime will be inevitable.

Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays

For 200 years, criminologists theorized that delinquent and criminal acts arise from deviant psychological states (such as irrationality or immorality) and/or social conditions that produce these psychological states. This theoretical perspective, which is being duplicated in most efforts to understand and control research misconduct, has not been productive. More recently, criminological perspectives have emerged, emphasizing situational factors that enhance or restrict the opportunity for illegal or imprudent behavior. These so-called “opportunity” theories have been shown to have practical value in reducing crime rates. We explore the promise of these newer theories for the responsible conduct of research (RCR).     

Sex worker and mother: managing dual and threatened identities

This paper draws on a qualitative study that sought to understand and develop theory based upon 24 women's subjective accounts of their childhood and adult experiences and involvement in sex work in the UK. It specifically examines the management of dual and threatened identities for the 17 women who were also mothers. To ensure the centrality of the women's voices in the analysis and theory generation, a grounded theory approach was taken using a psychosocial framework that drew on concepts of resilience to explore how the meanings of those experiences were reflectively appraised by participants. The findings indicate that there is a need to cope with the threat to identity inherent in society's diametrically opposed perceptions of sex worker and ‘good mother’ and simultaneously to manage the coexistence of the roles and identities of mother and sex worker. What appear significant in determining how these tensions are managed are the accumulated risk factors of early childhood, and the resources available to individuals in adulthood to manage both identities. Services must recognize not only individual but wider environmental and familial factors impacting on women with the dual identity of sex worker and mother in order to promote their resilience as mothers, whether living with or apart from their children.     

Research in the concept‐based therapeutic community – its importance to European treatment research in the drug field1

The concept‐based therapeutic community (TC) has been more scrutinised than almost every treatment model in the drug field except for methadone maintenance treatment. Important reasons for emphasising research right from the beginning were financial and/or ideological. Because of strong, ideological reasons and because of extensive research, the American TC movement has had a great impact on the treatment field of drug abusers in Europe. However, independent of the TC movement, at the same time the European treatment field also initiated several important research projects. In particular the Scandinavian countries were active in process studies with a qualitative approach. For different reasons this research tradition in Scandinavia was never considered important in the international research society. In recent years this has changed, and there is now a consensus about the need for more process evaluation and phenomenological research to complement the large body of quantitative studies in the treatment field. Probably both American and European treatment research has contributed to the preservation of the best from the original TC models and a renunciation of the more destructive elements.     

Challenges in recruiting parents to participate in child welfare research: implications for study design and research practice

Although research with hard‐to‐reach populations is necessary to deepen the social work knowledge base and improve services to these groups, recruiting members of hard‐to‐reach populations for research projects is often a challenging process. Frequently, non‐probability sampling is used to obtain participants. However, the difficulties and limitations associated with this process in quantitative research are rarely discussed in depth in the literature. Sampling issues can significantly impact a research project, delaying it, extending it or even causing the premature termination of a project. Challenges to recruitment can limit the type of research that is completed, impact the knowledge base or introduce threats to validity through sampling bias. Using a preliminary quantitative study on parental engagement with child protective services as an illustration for the discussion, the challenges of non‐probability sampling with a hard‐to‐reach population and the implications for research practice are explored and discussed. Implications for future research practice are considered.     

Malaysian researchers talk about the influence of culture on research misconduct in higher learning institutions

Based on a previous survey by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) in the USA, a considerable number of foreign research scientists have been found guilty of research misconduct. However, it remains unclear as to whether or not cultural factors really contribute to research misconduct. This study is based on a series of interviews with Malaysian researchers from the local universities regarding their own professional experiences involving working with researchers or research students from different countries or of different nationalities. Most of the researchers interviewed agreed that cultures do shape individual character, which influences the way that such individuals conduct research, their decision-making, and their style of academic writing. Our findings also showed that working culture within the institution also influences research practices, as well as faculty mentorship of the younger generation of researchers. Given the fact such misconduct might be due to a lack of understanding of research or working cultures or practices within the institution, the impact on the scientific community and on society could be destructive. Therefore, it is suggested that the institution has an important role to play in orienting foreign researchers through training, mentoring, and discussion with regard to the “does” and “don’ts” related to research, and to provide them with an awareness of the importance of ethics when it comes to conducting research.     

Using research in practice: A research information service for social care practitioners

In recent years a variety of initiatives have been created with the aim of increasing the use of research in social care practice. This article reports findings from a one‐year pilot research information service provided by the What Works for Children project. Taking note of the evidence from the research utilization literature, the service was set up to support social care practitioners in using research findings in their service‐planning. An implementation officer worked with service‐planners to identify areas where research could be helpful. Researchers provided responses to practitioners’ questions by searching for, critically appraising and summarizing the relevant literature. This article looks at the practicalities of running such a service and discusses its potential for influencing research use. The pilot underlines the importance of some of the obstacles to using research, some of which our service was able to overcome. The gap between what practitioners want from research and what research provides is discussed.     

Making the case for youth participatory action research opportunities to enhance social developmental scholarship

Youth are capable agents with the capacity to engage with and shape issues pertinent to their lives. In the field of social development, we are witnessing an exciting increase in children and adolescent involvement in the research process. Youth-led participatory action research (YPAR) is one such method, encompassing youth participation in identifying pressing issues within their own communities, collectively gathering, and systematically analyzing data to understand the root causes of such issues, and organizing for social change informed by rigorous empirical evidence. YPAR provides an opportunity to strengthen our understanding of social development processes. Using three illustrative case studies from YPAR projects engaging elementary, high school, and college-age children and adolescents, I discuss the connections between YPAR as a mechanism for enhancing social developmental research designs, an intervention in and of itself fostering key social-emotional competencies, and a process for facilitating more equity-oriented scholarship. The paper concludes with strategies for how researchers new to YPAR may incorporate this practice into their research and key training considerations.     

Ethical Challenges to the Integrity of Physicans: Financial Conflicts of Interest in Clinical Research

Financial conflicts of interest arise when physicians' judgment and decision making become compromised by financial gains or interests, and thus create risk of undo harm to research participants, to the integrity of research projects, and, ultimately, to society at large. Such conflicts also violate the moral maxims of medicine, and thus damage the integrity of physicians and the medical profession. I submit that key remedies for this problem are the integrity (self-respect) of physicians and the respectful engagement of research participants (whether patients or nonpatient volunteers) as partners in research projects. Accordingly, I consider physicians the primary moral agents, research participants the secondary moral agents, and society the tertiary moral agent with responsibilities for protection against whatever undue harm in clinical research. The latter needs to address the powerful cultural, commercial, political, and social factors that contribute to physicians' financial conflicts of interest.