Professional Ethics of Software Engineers: An Ethical Framework.

The purpose of this article is to propose an ethical framework for software engineers that connects software developers' ethical responsibilities directly to their professional standards. The implementation of such an ethical framework can overcome the traditional dichotomy between professional skills and ethical skills, which plagues the engineering professions, by proposing an approach to the fundamental tasks of the practitioner, i.e., software development, in which the professional standards are intrinsically connected to the ethical responsibilities. In so doing, the ethical framework improves the practitioner's professionalism and ethics. We call this approach Ethical-Driven Software Development (EDSD), as an approach to software development. EDSD manifests the advantages of an ethical framework as an alternative to the all too familiar approach in professional ethics that advocates "stand-alone codes of ethics". We believe that one outcome of this synergy between professional and ethical skills is simply better engineers. Moreover, since there are often different software solutions, which the engineer can provide to an issue at stake, the ethical framework provides a guiding principle, within the process of software development, that helps the engineer evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of different software solutions. It does not and cannot affect the end-product in and of-itself. However, it can and should, make the software engineer more conscious and aware of the ethical ramifications of certain engineering decisions within the process.

Cost, Usability, Credibility, Fairness, Accountability, Transparency, and Explainability Framework for Safe and Effective Large Language Models in Medical Education: Narrative Review and Qualitative Study.

BACKGROUND: The world has witnessed increased adoption of large language models (LLMs) in the last year. Although the products developed using LLMs have the potential to solve accessibility and efficiency problems in health care, there is a lack of available guidelines for developing LLMs for health care, especially for medical education. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to identify and prioritize the enablers for developing successful LLMs for medical education. We further evaluated the relationships among these identified enablers. METHODS: A narrative review of the extant literature was first performed to identify the key enablers for LLM development. We additionally gathered the opinions of LLM users to determine the relative importance of these enablers using an analytical hierarchy process (AHP), which is a multicriteria decision-making method. Further, total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) was used to analyze the perspectives of product developers and ascertain the relationships and hierarchy among these enablers. Finally, the cross-impact matrix-based multiplication applied to a classification (MICMAC) approach was used to determine the relative driving and dependence powers of these enablers. A nonprobabilistic purposive sampling approach was used for recruitment of focus groups. RESULTS: The AHP demonstrated that the most important enabler for LLMs was credibility, with a priority weight of 0.37, followed by accountability (0.27642) and fairness (0.10572). In contrast, usability, with a priority weight of 0.04, showed negligible importance. The results of TISM concurred with the findings of the AHP. The only striking difference between expert perspectives and user preference evaluation was that the product developers indicated that cost has the least importance as a potential enabler. The MICMAC analysis suggested that cost has a strong influence on other enablers. The inputs of the focus group were found to be reliable, with a consistency ratio less than 0.1 (0.084). CONCLUSIONS: This study is the first to identify, prioritize, and analyze the relationships of enablers of effective LLMs for medical education. Based on the results of this study, we developed a comprehendible prescriptive framework, named CUC-FATE (Cost, Usability, Credibility, Fairness, Accountability, Transparency, and Explainability), for evaluating the enablers of LLMs in medical education. The study findings are useful for health care professionals, health technology experts, medical technology regulators, and policy makers.

A first-order simulator to control dioxin emissions: NMCRC-ATMOS.

Dioxins are highly toxic halogenated organic compounds formed as an unintentional by-product of many industrial processes involving chlorine and combustion. At the Negev Monte Carlo Research Center (NMCRC) and the Green Processes Center at the Shamoon College of Engineering (SCE), Israel, we have developed a code for the first-order estimation of dioxin emissions from waste incinerators and the subsequent atmospheric dispersion. The NMCRC-ATMOS (Atmospheric Evaluator) program will allow public planners and facility operators to estimate and predict the effect of current and potential waste incineration facilities on nearby population centres. This information can also be used by plant operators to decide whether to run the facilities at maximum capacity based on weather conditions. With the NMCRC-ATMOS tool, the user has the ability to easily establish location-based fallout from the average conditions (both facility and atmospheric) surrounding the waste incineration plant. This program currently focuses on dioxin emissions from waste incinerators, but can eventually be expanded to include other emission sources and atmospheric effects, as well as internet connectivity for real-time data acquisition. NMCRC-ATMOS is a Windows program that has been tested on Windows XP Service Pack 2 with the .NET Framework 2.0 installed.

Fluorescence spectroscopy of H-ras transfected murine fibroblasts: a comparison with Monte Carlo simulations.

Autofluorescence properties of tissues have been widely used to diagnose various types of malignancies. In this study, we measured the autofluorescence properties of H-ras transfected murine fibroblasts and the counterpart control cells. The pair of cells is genetically identical except for the transfected H-ras gene. We applied Monte Carlo simulations to evaluate the relative contributions of Rayleigh and Mie scattering effects towards fluorescence in an in vitro model system of normal and H-ras transfected fibroblasts. The experimental results showed that fluorescence emission intensity was higher for normal cells than the malignant counterpart cells by about 30%. In normal cells, linearity in emission intensity was observed for cell densities of up to 1.0 x 10(6) cells/ml whereas for transformed cells it was up to 1.4 x 10(6) cells/ml. Nuclear volume changes give good account for the differences in the intrinsic fluorescence between normal and malignant cells. The Monte Carlo (MC) code, newly developed for this study, explains both predominant experimental features: the large fluorescence intensity differences between the transfected and the corresponding control cells as well as the phenomena of the red shift in the excitation spectra as a function of cell density. The contribution of Rayleigh scattering was found to be predominant compared to Mie scattering.