Ethics of Human Resources Management in the Cameroonian Health System, Medical Nomadism and the Ineffectiveness of the Fight against High Blood Pressure

Context/objectives: The fight against Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) is a long-term undertaking, which requires available, motivated and well-managed human resources (HR). The administrative management of skills on both qualitative and quantitative levels is one of the essential functions of a health system. To better implement policies of fight against High Blood Pressure (HBP) and other chronic diseases, it is important to establish strategies to retain health personnel. This loyalty requires favorable working conditions and consideration of the contribution-reward couple. Good working conditions are likely to reduce the phenomenon of medical nomadism;conversely, poor HR management can contribute to their exodus towards exotic “green pastures”, thus leading to an additional crisis in the Cameroonian health system. The fight against HBP is a complex, multifaceted and multifactorial reality that requires appropriate management model for all types of resources mainly HR. The main objective of this research is to show the impact of poor management of human resources in Cameroon health system on medical nomadism and the ineffectiveness of the fight against High Blood Pressure. Method: A cross-sectional descriptive survey among five hundred (500) health facilities in the center region of Cameroon has been conducted. A stratified probabilistic technique has been used, and the number of health facilities to be surveyed has been determined using the “sample size estimation table” of Depelteau. The physical questionnaires have been printed and then distributed to data collectors. After data collection, the latter were grouped during processing in Excel sheets. The Chi-square test was used for data with a qualitative value and that of Kolmogorov-Sminorf for data with a quantitative value to assess the normality and reliability of data. The Crochach’s Alpha reliability test allowed us to have a summary of the means and variances and then to search for intragroup correlations between variables. Descriptive analysis was possible with the XLSTAT 2016 software. Results: 43.60% of Health Facilities (HF) managers were unqualified. 82.20% of HF managers have staff in a situation of professional insecurity. They are mainly contractual (49.00), decision-making agents (24.40%), casual agents (08.80). The proportion of unstable personnel is average of 22.00% and very unstable, 12.00%.

Exploring the intersection of the medical metaverse and healthcare ethics:future considerations and caveats

The medical metaverse and digital twin are set to revolutionise healthcare.Like all emerging technologies their benefits must be weighed against their ethical and social,impacts.If we consider the advances of medical technology as an expression of our values,such as the pursuit of knowledge,cures and healing,an ethical study allows us to align our values and steer the technology towards an agreed goal.However,to appreciate the long-term consequents of a technology,those consequences must be considered in the context of a society already shaped by that technology.This paper identifies the technologies currently shaping society and considers the ethical,and social consequences of the medical metaverse and digital twin in that future society.

On Evaluating University Teachers’ Morality and Ethics in the New Era

University teachers play an important role in promoting moral and political education among university students.Regular and long-term construction of teachers’morality and ethics will contribute to the success of the fundamental task of cultivating talents.The present study proposes that due to the multiple identities of university teachers,it is necessary to evaluate the construction of teachers’morality and ethics in terms of what to evaluate and how to evaluate?It is expected that the attempt will provide useful guidance for the construction of university teachers’morality and ethics.

The Value and Realization Strategy of Teacher Ethics Construction in Colleges and Universities under the Perspective of“Cultivating People by Virtue”

“Cultivating people by virtue”has become the foundation of China’s education,and is the top priority of college education.“Only the learned can become teachers,and only those who behave properly can become role models”.The construction of teachers’ethics in colleges and universities is the premise of realizing the fundamental task of moral education,the need of teachers,the key to realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,and it is also the way to correct the bad atmosphere in colleges and universities.In the construction of teachers’ethics,teachers should understand their roles and improve their professional ethics,schools should improve the guarantee system of teachers’ethics construction,meanwhile,improve the status of teachers and create a social environment of respecting teachers and valuing teachers.

Levinas on the Ethics of the Other

The traditional mainstream of political philosophy establishes its thoughts on the subjectivity of“I”,which also formats its ethics of justice and freedom on the ground of selfness for itself and by itself.Political philosophers also incline to generalize and neutralize in labelling persons into the abstract concepts which ignore their particularity and diversity;as a result,this led to devastative consequence politically for the other,and also jeopardized the“I”.Hence Emmanuel Levinas provides his solution to this dilemma in an attempt to put the ethics of justice on the ground of the other.Justice for the other is the starting point for the political ethics.The other is the absolute infinity which cannot be encompassed by any conceptual generalization.It is otherness of the other that actually constitutes the selfness of“I”.The freedom of the other guarantees the freedom of“I”.Human being is initially ethical being.Justice for the other is the real foundation in securing justice for“I”.This mutual horizon of the other and I has primitive implication for the genuine ethics.

Hierarchical Media Ethics in the Digital Age: An Analysis of the “Primary School Student Lost Homework in Paris” Incident

In the digital age,traditional media ethics norms lack sufficient explanatory power and binding force in practice.This paper uses the“Primary School Student Lost Homework in Paris”incident as a case study to explore the ethical controversies surrounding the dissemination of this event.By adopting a hierarchical media ethics perspective,the paper dynamically examines the ethical conduct of various communicators,elucidates the ethical responsibilities of each party involved,and reveals the complexity of communication ethics in the digital age.

Exploring the Long-Term Mechanism of the Construction of College Teachers’Ethics in the New Era Under the Concept of“Sanquan Education”

This paper takes the long-term mechanism exploration of the construction of teachers’ethics in the new era under the concept of“Sanquan education,”aiming to explore how to establish a long-term mechanism of the construction to meet the needs of college education development under the background of the new era.A series of targeted measures and suggestions are put forward,including improving the system and mechanism,strengthening the education and training of teachers’ethics,and establishing the evaluation and assessment mechanism.The implementation of these measures can promote the formation of the long-term mechanism of the construction of teachers’ethics in colleges and universities,improve teachers’ethics and behavior quality,and provide strong support for the development of education in colleges and universities.

The Price of Engineering Ethics, a Personal Story

There are costs for doing the right thing,but regret is not one of those costs.I learned this lesson the hard way throughout a 42-year engineering career.As a young engineer,raising a family,I was more adaptable to management mandates,i.e.,I was more willing to be unethical to keep my job to make money and have health insurance for my family.As I grew in age,experience,and stamina,I was less adaptable,i.e.,I was more ethical.This article tells this story through events at various times in my engineering career1.Ethics define how we do the right thing.

Medical Ethics in the Context of the Teachings of V.I.Vernadsky About the Earth’s Biosphere and Living Matter

The subject of medical ethics is usually considered within the binary doctor-patient relationship.In the context of V.I.Vernadsky’s teaching about the Earth’s biosphere and living matter,this relationship turns into a tripartite relationship.The third party is the natural environment around us,primarily the Earth’s biosphere.Thus,the problem of developing and improving medical ethics is connected with entropy-ecological issues.Against the background of this issue,the article draws attention to three issues:the issue of maintaining the chiral purity of living matter,the issue of coexistence and the fight against the world of viruses,and the issue of the danger of degradation of human intelligence under the influence of digitalization and robotization.All three questions relate to the physical and mental health of a person and correspond to what is included in the content of the concept of medical ethics.

The Ethics of Environmental Preservation at the Confluence of the Traditional Approach and Current Challenges

The accumulation of environmental problems,but also the ever-increasing impetuosity with which they manifest,led,starting in 1970,to the need for the emergence and development of a new branch of traditional ethics.Environmental ethics is concerned with finding answers to ethical questions circumscribed to the sphere of human relations with the non-human part of nature.The new field has proven to be an active involvement factor in promoting human values that emphasize the human-environment relationship.Many environmental ethicists believe that the non-human universe has value per se.The article undertakes a theoretical approach that tries to capture the relevant aspects of the efforts by which environmental ethicists combine their activity with other entities,responsible structures,in the collective intervention approach to improve environmental problems.

Reading Toni Morrison’s Home From the Perspective of Medical Relationship Ethics

As the first black women Nobel laureate,Toni Morrison has drawn great attention with her fascinating and deep-thinking novels.Her 10th novel Home vividly shows the racial suffering and the post-war trauma of black veteran Frank,who has drawn critical attention from various perspectives.However,there is hardly any scholarly focus on another major character Cee,whose experience of medical and racial discrimination actually constitutes another important clue throughout the whole story.Therefore,this paper intends to analyze Home from the perspective of ethical relationship ethics,including doctor-patient relationship,doctor-society relationship,patient-society relationship,and patient-family relationship.The analysis indicates that Home not only reveals the history of medical racial discrimination and human experiment ethics problems under the rapid development of medical technology in the 1950s,but also inspire readers’thinking on the ethical problems and ethical dilemmas in the contemporary world.

The Economic Context of Our Time:A Diagnosis in the Light of Transformative Ethics

The following contribution is the attempt to touch upon some fundamental questions for a reliable ethical diagnosis of what can be called the economic context of our epoch.For this purpose,we will consider a well-known concept within the medieval economics in light of its modern reappropriation against the backdrop of transformative ethics:the meant concept is usury;the meant reappropriation is that of Ezra Pound.For reasons of space,the single steps will merely hint at ethical questions that require a much more careful investigation.Within these limits,the essay will therefore analyze certain traits of our current economic context while reconsidering its ethical dimension in the light of the concept of usury.The framework within which this analysis will be conducted is that of transformative ethics.

Study on the Integration of Professional Ethics in Medical Interpretation Course Based on Situational Simulation Teaching Method and Virtual Reality Technology

Based on the theory of situational simulation,the article explores the approach to building the medical interpretation course from three aspects,which are the objective,design,and teaching model.The course aims to cultivate high-quality medical interpreting talents and enhance students’practical interpretation skills,as well as to integrate professional ethics into teaching.Thus,it is necessary for lecturers to change their teaching philosophy,apply information technology,and improve teaching design.Through rich medical interpretation course,lecturers can promote the integration of professional ethics in medical interpretation.

Tackling the Existential Threats from Quantum Computers and AI

Although AI and quantum computing (QC) are fast emerging as key enablers of the future Internet, experts believe they pose an existential threat to humanity. Responding to the frenzied release of ChatGPT/GPT-4, thousands of alarmed tech leaders recently signed an open letter to pause AI research to prepare for the catastrophic threats to humanity from uncontrolled AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). Perceived as an “epistemological nightmare”, AGI is believed to be on the anvil with GPT-5. Two computing rules appear responsible for these risks. 1) Mandatory third-party permissions that allow computers to run applications at the expense of introducing vulnerabilities. 2) The Halting Problem of Turing-complete AI programming languages potentially renders AGI unstoppable. The double whammy of these inherent weaknesses remains invincible under the legacy systems. A recent cybersecurity breakthrough shows that banning all permissions reduces the computer attack surface to zero, delivering a new zero vulnerability computing (ZVC) paradigm. Deploying ZVC and blockchain, this paper formulates and supports a hypothesis: “Safe, secure, ethical, controllable AGI/QC is possible by conquering the two unassailable rules of computability.” Pursued by a European consortium, testing/proving the proposed hypothesis will have a groundbreaking impact on the future digital infrastructure when AGI/QC starts powering the 75 billion internet devices by 2025.

Helping People and Changing the World with CS

What should academic institutions be doing in order to benefit students,the community at large,and society in the new era?Particularly,as computing is impacting all aspects of human society,it also brings many challenges and opportunities for the academic departments of computer science.Some of these challenges include the increasing impact of software on society,issues involving privacy and data abuse,and ethical issues concerning AI.Towards addressing these challenges,the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology(KAIST)leverages its position as an educator in order to train the future computing workforce to be more aware of these issues.To achieve this goal,KAIST mainly adopts three strategies:Combining science&technology and humanities together;putting academy and industry together;training software experts while making them understand people and the world.

Facing ethical concerns in the age of precise gene therapy:Outlook on inherited arrhythmias

This editorial,comments on the article by Spartalis et al published in the recent issue of the World Journal of Cardiology.We here provide an outlook on potential ethical concerns related to the future application of gene therapy in the field of inherited arrhythmias.As monogenic diseases with no or few therapeutic options available through standard care,inherited arrhythmias are ideal candidates to gene therapy in their treatment.Patients with inherited arrhythmias typically have a poor quality of life,especially young people engaged in agonistic sports.While genome editing for treatment of inherited arrhythmias still has theoretical application,advances in CRISPR/Cas9 technology now allows the generation of knock-in animal models of the disease.However,clinical translation is somehow expected soon and this make consistent discussing about ethical concerns related to gene editing in inherited arrhythmias.Genomic off-target activity is a known technical issue,but its relationship with ethnical and individual genetical diversity raises concerns about an equitable accessibility.Meanwhile,the costeffectiveness may further limit an equal distribution of gene therapies.The economic burden of gene therapies on healthcare systems is is increasingly recognized as a pressing concern.A growing body of studies are reporting uncertainty in payback periods with intuitive short-term effects for insurance-based healthcare systems,but potential concerns for universal healthcare systems in the long term as well.Altogether,those aspects strongly indicate a need of regulatory entities to manage those issues.

Integrating GPT into the Journalism and Communication Industries:The Technological Logic,Ecosystem Reconstruction,and Ethical Chal enges

Generative AI,represented by GPT(Generative Pre-trained Transformer),is now leading the technological revolution and is reconstructing the journalism and communication industries'ecosystems because of its powerful generative capacity and diverse range of outputs.While GPT is busy revolutionizing and innovating the production of news content,working patterns,and operation modes,it has also given rise to ethical concerns in regard to news authenticity,data security,humanistic values,and other related aspects.Therefore,it is imperative to initiate strategies and approaches,such as establishing a mechanism for verifying information authenticity,enhancing data security and privacy regulations,and instituting an ethical supervision and governance framework for AI,in order to facilitate the systematic advancement of AI-based news production while reinstating public trust.

The AI Paradox: Mapping the Unintended Disruptions in IT and Beyond

In the realm of Artificial Intelligence (AI), there exists a complex landscape where promises of efficiency and innovation clash with unforeseen disruptions across Information Technology (IT) and broader societal realms. This paper sets out on a journey to explore the intricate paradoxes inherent in AI, focusing on the unintended consequences that ripple through IT and beyond. Through a thorough examination of literature and analysis of related works, this study aims to shed light on the complexities surrounding the AI paradox. It delves into how this paradox appears in various domains, such as algorithmic biases, job displacement, ethical dilemmas, and privacy concerns. By mapping out these unintended disruptions, this research seeks to offer a nuanced understanding of the challenges brought forth by AI-driven transformations. Ultimately, its goal is to pave the way for the responsible development and deployment of AI, fostering a harmonious integration of technological progress with societal values and priorities.

Biobanks and biomarkers:Their current and future role in biomedical research

The importance and utility of biobanks has increased exponentially since their inception and creation.Initially used as part of translational research,they now contribute over 40%of data for all cancer research papers in the United States of America and play a crucial role in all aspects of healthcare.Multiple classification systems exist but a simplified approach is to either classify as population-based or disease-oriented entities.Whilst historically publicly funded institutions,there has been a significant increase in industry funded entities across the world which has changed the dynamic of biobanks offering new possibilities but also new challenges.Biobanks face legal questions over data sharing and intellectual property as well as ethical and sustainability questions particularly as the world attempts to move to a low-carbon economy.International collaboration is required to address some of these challenges but this in itself is fraught with complexity and difficulty.This review will examine the current utility of biobanks in the modern healthcare setting as well as the current and future challenges these vital institutions face.

Designing a medical ethics curriculum in ophthalmology

Ethical principles form a bedrock to medical practice in any specialty,guiding physicians to appropriate attitudes and behaviors.A formal ethics curriculum can be difficult to generate de novo in an ophthalmology training program.A number of barriers exist in most ophthalmology departments:trainees may think ethics is of secondary importance compared to core basic and clinical science topics;most ophthalmology faculty have no formal degree in medical ethics;there is limited didactic time with competing academic,clinical,and surgical priorities;work-hours regulations may limit the time available to deliver“para-professional”lectures;and there is a belief that the medical ethics lectures during medical school is a sufficient amount of coursework to last through a physician’s career with no need for continuing professional development.The four pillars of medical ethics are beneficence,non-maleficence,autonomy,and justice.In addition,morals,ethics,and professionalism are important aspects of sound medical practice.A curriculum specific to medical ethics in ophthalmology can be developed in any of our sub-specialties and include lectures,curated readings,case rounds,and clinic wrap-up sessions.Ethical considerations are part of everyday clinical practice,and a structured ethics curriculum can be incorporated into ophthalmology training programs.The concept of backward design can be used to structure the curriculum,starting with the expected outcome,then designing authentic assessments,and finally putting together a learning plan that has students actively involved in ethical discussions.This paper will provide a guide to developing an ethics curriculum for an ophthalmology training program utilizing the concept of backwards design and guide the reader through the process of developing expected learning outcomes,authentic assessments,and a unified learning plan.