bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Effect of in vitro and in vivo organotin exposures on the immune functions of murray cod (Maccullochella peelii peelii)
Authors: Harford Andrew J. , O'Halloran Kathryn , Wright Paul F. A. 
Published: July 2007

Abstract
Murray cod (Maccullochella peelii peelii) is an iconic native Australian freshwater fish and an ideal species for ecotoxicological testing of environmental pollutants. The species is indigenous to the Murray-Darling basin, which is the largest river system in Australia but also the ultimate sink for many environmental pollutants. The organotins tributyltin (TBT) and dibutyltin (DBT) are common pollutants of both freshwater and marine environments and are also known for their immunotoxicity in both mammals and aquatic organisms. In this study, TBT and DBT were used as exemplar immunotoxins to assess the efficiency of immune function assays (i.e., mitogen-stimulated lymphoproliferation, phagocytosis in head kidney tissue, and serum lysozyme activity) and to compare the sensitivity of Murray cod to other fish species. The organotins were lethal to Murray cod at concentrations previously reported as sublethal in rainbow trout (i.e., intraperitoneal [i.p.] lethal dose to 75% of the Murray cod [LD75] = 2.5 mg/kg DBT and i.p. lethal dose to 100% of the Murray cod [LD100] = 12.5 mg/kg TBT and DBT). In vivo TBT exposure at 0.1 and 0.5 mg/kg stimulated the phagocytic function of Murray cod (F = 6.89, df = 18, p = 0.004), while the highest concentration of 2.5 mg/kg TBT decreased lymphocyte numbers (F = 7.92, df = 18, p = 0.02) and mitogenesis (F = 3.66, df = 18, p = 0.035). Dibutyltin was the more potent immunosuppressant in Murray cod, causing significant reductions in phagocytic activity (F = 5.34, df = 16, p = 0.013) and lymphocyte numbers (F = 10.63, df = 16, p = 0.001).
Accumulation and transfer of contaminants in killer whales (Orcinus orca) from Norway: Indications for contaminant metabolism
Authors: Wolkers Hans , Corkeron Peter J. , van Parijs Sofie M. , Similä Tiu , van Bavel Bert 
Published: July 2007

Abstract
Blubber tissue of one subadult and eight male adult killer whales was sampled in Northern Norway in order to assess the degree and type of contaminant exposure and transfer in the herring–killer whale link of the marine food web. A comprehensive selection of contaminants was targeted, with special attention to toxaphenes and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs). In addition to assessing exposure and food chain transfer, selective accumulation and metabolism issues also were addressed. Average total polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) and pesticide levels were similar, approximately 25 μg/g lipid, and PBDEs were approximately 0.5 μg/g. This makes killer whales one of the most polluted arctic animals, with levels exceeding those in polar bears. Comparing the contamination of the killer whale's diet with the diet of high-arctic species such as white whales reveals six to more than 20 times higher levels in the killer whale diet. The difference in contaminant pattern between killer whales and their prey and the metabolic index calculated suggested that these cetaceans have a relatively high capacity to metabolize contaminants. Polychlorinated biphenyls, chlordanes, and dichlorodiphenyldichloro-ethylene (DDE) accumulate to some degree in killer whales, although toxaphenes and PBDEs might be partly broken down.
Leadership and Ethical Development: Balancing Light and Shadow
Authors: Lichtenstein Benyamin M. , Smith Beverly A. , Torbert William R. 
Published: July 2007

Abstract:What makes a leader ethical? This paper critically examines the answer given by developmental theory, which argues that individuals can develop through cumulative stages of ethical orientation and behavior (e.g. Hobbesian, Kantian, Rawlsian), such that leaders at later developmental stages (of whom there are empirically very few today) are more ethical. By contrast to a simple progressive model of ethical development, this paper shows that each developmental stage has both positive (light) and negative (shadow) aspects, which affect the ethical behaviors of leaders at that stage. It also explores an unexpected result: later stage leaders can have more significantly negative effects than earlier stage leadership.
Environmental Risk Problems and the Language of Ethics
Authors: Frederick Robert E. , Hoffman W. Michael 
Published: July 2007

Abstract:In this paper we present six criteria for assessing proposed solutions to environmental risk problems. To assess the final criterion—the criterion of ethical responsibility—we suggest another series of criteria. However, before these criteria can be used to address ethical problems, business persons must be willing to discuss the problem in ethical terms. Yet many decision makers are unwilling to do so. Drawing on research by James Waters and Frederick Bird, we discuss this “moral muteness”—the inability or unwillingness to use moral language to solve moral problems—and suggest some underlying causes of moral muteness.
The Role of Character in Business Ethics
Authors: Hartman Edwin M. 
Published: July 2007

Abstract:There is good reason to take a virtue-based approach to business ethics. Moral principles are fairly useful in assessing actions, but understanding how moral people behave and how they become moral requires reference to virtues, some of which are important in business. We must go beyond virtues and refer to character, of which virtues are components, to grasp the relationship between moral assessment and psychological explanation. Virtues and other character traits are closely related to (in technical terms, they supervene on) personality traits postulated by personality psychologists. They may therefore be featured in respectable psychological explanations. But good character fits no familiar psychological pattern. A person of good character is sufficiently self-aware and rational that his or her virtues are not accompanied by the vices that psychologists find usually associated with them. A course in business ethics can help develop this self-awareness, which a good life in business requires.
Thoughts in Response to Fr. John C. Haughey on Loyalty in the Workplace
Authors: Axinn Sidney 
Published: July 2007

For a number of reasons, Fr. Haughey answers “yes,” to the question in his title. “The object of many workplace loyalties seems to be changing from a person-centered focus…to a cause-centered or common good or public interest focus” (p. 22).The idea of a change in the object of loyalty raises a number of interesting issues. The end of individual hero-worship seems appealing: to give love and loyalty to principles rather than persons sounds moral and ever so high-minded. One thinks of Plato’s move from the focus on the personality of Socrates in the early dialogues to the impersonal “Athenian Stranger” of his last work, “Laws.” But we must also note that the Athenian Stranger and his principles have hardly received the attention given to Socrates and the earlier dialogues. Would the principles of Christianity have persisted through the centuries without the story of Christ? Would we have Mohammedanism without Mohammed, Confucianism without Confucius, Buddhism without Buddha?Do people work, fight, sacrifice, for principles without personal leadership? When they have, are those principles desirable objects of loyalty? Historical examples have ranged from loyalty to the fatherland to “making the world safe for democracy.” Even these principles were tied to personal leadership.A morally healthy individual must have more than one loyalty, as Haughey says. “A single loyalty invariably becomes extreme” (p. 9). Therefore, loyalty to one’s business connection is not to be the only loyalty. The problem, then, is to balance the business loyalty with the others. Fr. Haughey gives some, but very little, guidance on this tricky matter.
Trust, Accountability, and Sales Agents’ Dueling Loyalties
Authors: Kurland Nancy B. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis paper argues that current accountability mechanisms are inadequate to ensure that straight-commissioned agents meet their fiduciary obligations to their clients. In doing so, using agency theory, it revisits how the straight-commission compensation system creates agents’ dueling loyalties and recommends mechanisms of accountability organizations, agents, and/or clients can recognize and employ to ensure agents’ fiduciary obligations to their clients.
The Infelicities of Business Ethics in the Third World: The Melanesian Context
Authors: Lea David 
Published: July 2007

Abstract:In a recent paper Allen Buchanan makes a basic distinction between two types of ethical problems which arise in business: “genuine ethical dilemmas, in which the problem is to discover what one ought to do, when two or more valid ethical duties (or values or principles) conflict, and compliance problems, which occur when one knows what one’s moral obligations are, but experiences difficulty in fulfilling them due to pressures of self-interest or loyalty to group or organization.” Buchanan argues that most business ethicists believe that this simple dichotomy is exhaustive. He claims it is not and argues that there is a third area of concern that involves perfecting imperfect duties, or coming to “have definite ethical duties, where before there were at best vague ethical goals.” However, I wish to argue that there is a further area of concern in business ethics and this area does not involve deciding between competing moral principles, values etc, attempting to comply with known principles, or imparting determinate content to vague, non-specific imperfect principles of obligation (the subject of Buchanan’s recent paper). This sort of problem occurs frequently in the third world in circumstances in which the agent entirely fails to recognize the normative structure that underpins the considered options.
Business Ethical Perceptions of Business People in East China: An Empirical Study
Authors: Wu Xinwen 
Published: July 2007

Abstract:This paper deals with the ethical perceptions of business people and the current state of business ethics in east China. After surveying 800 business people in 59 enterprises and interviewing 42 chief executive officers, chairs and senior managers among them, the following conclusions can be drawn: First of all, business ethics has become a new and popular topic in east China. Second, quite a lot of business people are pessimistic about the ethical standards of their superiors and co-workers, and about the ethical climate of their enterprises. Third, more and more business leaders begin to realize the importance of business ethics. Finally, in east China, the establishment of the market economy and the improvement of business ethics will depend on each other. In short, business people in east China have various ethical perceptions, and the current state of business ethics in east China is also complex and changeable.
Marketing to Inner-City Blacks: PowerMaster and Moral Responsibility
Authors: Brenkert George G. 
Published: July 2007

Abstract:PowerMaster was a malt liquor which Heileman Brewing Company sought to market to inner-city blacks in the early 1990s. Due to widespread opposition, Heileman ceased its marketing of PowerMaster. This paper begins by exploring the moral objections of moral illusion, moral insensitivity and unfair advantage brought against Heileman’s marketing campaign. Within the current market system, it is argued that none of these criticism was clearly justified. Heileman might plausibly claim it was fulfilling its individual moral responsibilities.Instead, Heileman’s marketing program must be viewed as part of a group of marketing programs which all targeted inner-city blacks. It is argued that those marketers who target this particular market segment constitute a group which is collectively responsible for the harms imposed by their products on inner-city blacks. This responsibility is reducible neither to individual responsibility nor to a shared responsibility. It constitutes a dimension of moral responsibility to which marketers must pay attention.
Business Ethics and Stakeholder Analysis
Authors: Goodpaster Kenneth E. 
Published: July 2007

Much has been written about stakeholder analysis as a process by which to introduce ethical values into management decision-making. This paper takes a critical look at the assumptions behind this idea, in an effort to understand better the meaning of ethical management decisions.A distinction is made between stakeholder analysis and stakeholder synthesis. The two most natural kinds of stakeholder synthesis are then defined and discussed: strategic and multi-fiduciary. Paradoxically, the former appears to yield business without ethics and the latter appears to yield ethics without business. The paper concludes by suggesting that a third approach to stakeholder thinking needs to be developed, one that avoids the paradox just mentioned and that clarifies for managers (and directors) the legitimate role of ethical considerations in decision-making.So we must think through what management should be accountable for; and how and through whom its accountability can be discharged. The stockholders’ interest, both short- and long-term, is one of the areas. But it is only one.Peter Drucker, 1988Harvard Business Review
Feminist Ethics as Moral Grounding for Stakeholder Theory
Authors: Burton Brian K. , Dunn Craig P. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractStakeholder theory, as a method of management based on morals and behavior, must be grounded by a theory of ethics. However, traditional ethics of justice and rights cannot completely ground the theory. Following and expanding on the work of Wicks, Gilbert, and Freeman (1994), we believe that feminist ethics, invoking principles of caring, provides the missing element that allows moral theory to ground the stakeholder approach to management. Examples are given to support the suggested general principle for making business decisions under feminist moral theory.
Confucian Trustworthiness and the Practice of Business in China
Authors: Koehn Daryl 
Published: July 2007

Abstract:Confucius’s teachings fall under four headings: “culture, moral conduct, doing one’s best, and being trustworthy in what one says” (7/25). Trust or, more precisely, being trustworthy, plays a central role in the Confucian ethic. This paper begins by examining the Confucian concept of trustworthiness. The second part of the paper discusses how the ideal of trustworthiness makes itself felt in business practices within China. The paper concludes by raising and addressing several objections to the Confucian emphasis on trustworthiness.
Trust, Risk, and Shareholder Decision Making: An Investor Perspective on Corporate Governance
Authors: Ryan Lori Verstegen , Buchholtz Ann K. 
Published: July 2007

Abstract:Shareholders’ relationship to the firm is a central theme in corporate governance, yet the investors’ perspective has been virtually ignored in governance research. This paper attempts to explain the previously unexplored role of trust in the investor decision-making process. The proposed model suggests that trust acts as the antecedent of the risk variable in existing investor decision-making models. Stock ownership involves both financial and ethical risk, which by definition requires some level of implicit trust in management and the market.
Is Self-Identity Image Advertising Ethical?
Authors: Bishop John Douglas 
Published: July 2007

Abstract:Discussions of the ethics of advertising have been based on a general distinction between informative and persuasive advertising without looking at specific techniques of persuasion. Self-identity image ads persuade by presenting an image of an idealized person-type such as a “beautiful” woman (Chanel) or a sexy teen (Calvin Klein). The product becomes a symbol of the ideal, and target consumers are invited to use the product to project the self-image to themselves and others. This paper argues that image ads are not false or misleading, and that whether or not they advocate false values is a matter for subjective reflection. Image ads can undermine a consumer’s self-esteem by collectively omitting images authentic for that sort of person (such as large women), and by combining impossible images with implied gaze. Image ads generally do not undermine autonomy of choice, internal autonomy, or social autonomy. It is concluded that image advertising is a basically ethical technique, but several recommendations are given on how use of image advertising can avoid specific harms.
The Doctrine of Double Effect, Deadly Drugs, and Business Ethics
Authors: Masek Lawrence 
Published: July 2007

Abstract:Manuel Velasquez and F. Neil Brady apply the doctrine of double effect to business ethics and conclude that the doctrine allows a pharmaceutical company to sell a drug with potentially fatal side effects only if it also has the good effect of saving lives. This forbids the sale of many common products, such as automobiles and alcohol. My account preserves the virtues of the doctrine of double effect without making it too restrictive. I apply the doctrine to a pharmaceutical company’s decision to market a drug with dangerous side effects and argue that free markets often offer the best way to compare the good and bad effects of business decisions. I conclude that the doctrine does allow a business to sell a potentially fatal product that does not save lives, provided that it warns consumers about the danger.
Quasi‐periodic self‐stabilization of adaptive ARMA predictors
Authors: Jaïdane‐Saïdane Meriem , Macchi Odile 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe stability of adaptive ARMA predictors, which present random time‐varying poles, is investigated. The updating algorithm is a suboptimal version of the stochastic gradient. For narrow‐band inputs local and quasi‐periodic instabilities occur. At those times the output error increases exponentially but has essentially the frequency of the unstable pole of the MA predictor part. This unstable error generates in the algorithm a stabilizing drift for the (unstable) MA parameters. This behaviour, called self‐stabilization (SS), is attenuated by inclusion of a (leakage) σ‐factor in the updating algorithm.The SS analysis is applied to the important application of the ADPCM encoding of speech signals. It is shown that in successive encoder/decoder connections the SS phenomenon results in the accumulation of quantization distortions at each transcoder. For a digital transmission chain this is a serious drawback.
Adaptive tracking control for a class of plants with uncertain parameters and non‐linearities
Authors: Grujić Ljubomir T. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractWe consider systems in which the plant parameters and non‐linearities can vary unpredictably within known bounds. Their variations can be arbitrarily fast, even discontinuous. The desired plant output is defined as the output response to a governing input of an appropriately selected reference model. For this class of problems the concept of stable and exponentially stable tracking is defined. The problem studied is the synthesis of an adaptive controller having adjustable parameters to guarantee (stable, exponentially stable) tracking for the plant subject to the action of external disturbances. A solution to the problem is established for a class of plants determined by a special structure. Simulation results illustrate excellent tracking behaviour for a second‐order plant with unknown parameters and non‐linearities having unpredictable variations.
An adaptive estimation method using instrumental variables and deconvolution
Authors: Kollias Stefanos D. , Halkias Christos C. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe performance of the methods of recursive instrumental variables (RIV) and minimum variance deconvolution (MVD) is examined when the methods are interwoven so as to provide adaptive estimation of the ARMA model parameters of a system driven by white unmeasurable noise. It is shown that the methods have some similar properties which permit their successful combination in most cases. The asymptotic properties of the resulting estimation approach are evaluated in terms of the ARMA model parameters or the pole‐zero locations, the signal‐to‐noise ratio and the frequency bandwidth of the system impulse response. An analysis of the second‐order ARMA model and various simulation examples are presented which illustrate the derived results. The method has been successfully applied to the problem of adaptive seismic signal deconvolution.
On the steady state behaviour of stochastic systems
Authors: Caines P. E. , Meynt S. P. , Moscas E. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe question of the existence of steady state solutions to the closed loop system equations for stochastic systems, and in particular ARMAX systems under non‐linear feedback control, is addressed. Using the ergodic theory of time‐invariant Markov processes, it is shown that corresponding to a large class of control laws there exist shift‐invariant probabilities for the joint disturbance input‐output processes. This permits an asymptotic analysis of (i) averages of functions of the state process, (ii) the probability distributions governing the state process and (iii) loss functions on the system in the steady state.
Simple adaptive control of uncertain systems
Authors: Bar‐Kana Izhak , Kaufman Howard 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis paper considers adaptive control of various systems with unknown time‐varying or non‐linear dynamics in an attempt to show that practical adaptive control can be simple and robust. The simplified adaptive control methodology used is based on the observation that most real‐world systems, even non‐stationary or non‐linear, can be stabilized by simple controller configurations. More complex controllers may be needed only in order to improve the performance of the control systems. In the adaptive scheme, the stabilizability properties of the plants are used only to satisfy the necessary conditions that guarantee robustness of simple adaptive controllers. The desired performance is then imposed upon the plant by these adaptive controllers, which force the plant to follow the input‐output behaviour of low‐order reference models. Examples from the recent literature of control with uncertainty are used to illustrate the power of these adaptive techniques.
Input‐output theory of high‐gain adaptive stabilization of infinite‐dimensional systems with non‐linearities
Authors: Logemann Hartmut , Owens David H. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis paper develops an input‐output theory of high‐gain adaptive stabilization of certain infinite‐dimensional processes with actuator and sensor non‐linearities. It is shown that there is a wide range of gain adaption rules achieving stability for the class of processes under consideration if proportional output feedback is used. The abstract input‐output results are applied to retarded systems and Volterra integrodifferential systems. The paper shows that the scope of applicability of universal adaptive stabilization ideas extends far beyond finite‐dimensional linear systems.
Model reduction for robust control: A schur relative error method
Authors: Safonov M. G. , Chiang R. Y. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractA numerically robust relative error method for state‐space model order reduction is described. Our algorithm is based on Desai's balanced stochastic truncation technique for which Green has obtained an L∞ relative error bound. However, unlike previous methods, our Schur method completely circumvents the numerically delicate initial step of obtaining a minimal balanced stochastic realization of the power spectrum matrix G(s)GT(−s).