Science and engineering ethics
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In the recent years, an alarming rise in the incidence of cyber attacks has made cyber security a major concern for nations across the globe. Given the current volatile socio-political environment and the massive increase in the incidence of terrorism, it is imperative that government agencies rapidly realize the possibility of cyber space exploitation by terrorist organizations and state players to disrupt the normal way of life. ⋯ This study has focused on different aspects of cyber attacks and explored the reasons behind their increasing popularity among the terrorist organizations and state players. This study proposes an empirical model that can be used to estimate the risk levels associated with different types of cyber attacks and thereby provide a road map to conceptualize and formulate highly effective counter measures and cyber security policies.
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Research integrity and misconduct have recently risen to public attention as policy issues. Concern has arisen about divergence between this policy discourse and the language and concerns of scientists. ⋯ It finds, first, that these scientists were largely unaware of the Danish Code of Conduct for Responsible Conduct of Research and indifferent towards the value of such codes; second, that they presented an image of good science as nuanced and thereby as difficult to manage through abstracted, principle-based codes; and third, that they repeatedly pointed to systemic issues both as triggering misconduct and as ethical problems in and of themselves. Research integrity is framed as a part of wider moves to 'responsibilise' science; understood in these terms, resistance to codes of conduct and the representation of integrity as a problem of science as a whole can be seen as a rejection of a neoliberal individualisation of responsibility.
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The number of articles published in open access journals (OAJs) has increased dramatically in recent years. Simultaneously, the quality of publications in these journals has been called into question. Few studies have explored the retraction rate from OAJs. ⋯ The number of retracted articles from OAJs has been steadily increasing. Misconduct was the primary reason for retraction. The majority of retracted articles were from journals with low impact factors and authored by researchers from China, India, Iran, and the USA.
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Editorial Letter
Invitation to Speak at a Conference: The Tempting Technique Adopted by Predatory Conferences' Organizers.
In recent years, predatory journals, conferences, and publishers have turned to an inevitable threat in scientific publishing. Researchers, regardless of their disciplines, should be aware of these predators and have to be able to recognize them. The main aim of the present paper is to raise awareness about the growing menace of fake invitations to speak at a scientific conference organized by predatory organizers and publishers. Some subtle signs to identify the fake invitations from the authentic ones have been introduced and discussed.
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This study examines the relationship among the employees-organization pro-environmental values fit (E-O PEVs fit), supervisors' PEVs and employees' pro-environmental behaviors (PEB). Informed by the PEB, organizational values and employee-organization fit literature, we propose and test hypotheses that under egoistic, altruistic and biosphere-value orientations, E-O PEVs fit versus non-fit have significant effects on employees' private-sphere PEB and public-sphere PEB, identifying supervisors' PEVs as a moderator. An empirical investigation indicates that the effect of E-O PEVs fit on employees' private-sphere PEB and public-sphere PEB varies as the value orientation differs. ⋯ As for egoistic value orientation, when organizational PEVs exceed employees' PEVs, not only will public-sphere PEB stop decreasing and tend to stabilize, but also private-sphere PEB will rise to a slight degree. Furthermore, compared with altruistic and biospheric values dimensions, supervisors who promote egoistic PEVs will have a more significant effect on the relationship between global E-O PEVs fit and employees' PEB. Finally, we suggest that the goals of an organization and its supervisors need to be combined within the actual situation of Chinese corporations to truly implement corporate green practices by balancing the profit goal and the environmental goal.