In the context of a larger project whose purpose was to comparatively analyze the associations of returnees in different autonomous communities, the need arose to specifically analyze the websites of these groups from a semiotic, discursive and communicational approach. The project required the creation of an analysis model based on a bibliographic review that would allow studying the sites in a comprehensive manner and that would take into account the new communicational paradigms. After exploring analysis models based on obsolete paradigms, (...) this research shows the design and validation of a website analysis proposal, in which two perspectives are differentiated and correlated: the technical aspects of the cyber genre and its discursive characteristics. (shrink)

Introduction Currently, The nature and scope of Clinical Ethics Protocols in Madrid are not well understood.Objectives The main objective is to describe the features of ‘guideline/recommendation’ type CEPs that have been or are being developed by existing Clinical Ethics Committees in Madrid. Secondary objectives include characterisation of those CECs that have been the most prolific in reference to CEP creation and implementation and identification of any trends in future CEP development.Methods We collected CEPs produced and in process by CECs accredited (...) in the public hospitals in Madrid, Spain, from 1996 to 2008.Results CECs developed 30 CEPs, with 10 more in process. The most common topic is refusal of treatment . If CEPs addressing terminal illness, Do-Not-Resuscitate orders and advance directives are placed into a separate ‘ethical problems at the end of life’ category, this CEP subject emerges as the most common . There is a relationship between the age of the CEC and the development of CEPs . CECs now seem to be more likely to engage in CEP development.Conclusions The CECs in Madrid, Spain, have developed a significant number of CEPs and there is a trend towards continued development. The most frequent topics are ethical problems at the end of life and refusal of treatment by the patient. (shrink)

Cognitive symptoms after COVID-19 have been increasingly recognized several months after the acute infection and have been designated as “brain fog.” We report a patient with cognitive symptoms that started immediately after COVID-19, in which cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers were highly suggestive of Alzheimer’s disease. Our case highlights the need to examine patients with cognitive symptoms following COVID-19 comprehensively. A detailed assessment combining clinical, cognitive, and biomarker studies may help disentangle the underlying mechanisms associated with cognitive dysfunction in each case. The (...) investigation of neurodegenerative processes in an early stage, especially in older patients, is probably warranted. (shrink)

In Alfonso de Cartagena's 'Memoriale virtutum' (1422) María Morrás and Jeremy Lawrance offer a new edition from the manuscripts of a compilation of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics addressed by the major Castilian intellectual of the day, bishop Alfonso de Cartagena, to the heir to the throne of Portugal, crown prince Duarte. The work was a speculum principis, an education for the future king in the virtues suitable to a statesman; Cartagena's choice of Aristotle was thus a significant index of the advent (...) of new Renaissance ideas. This edition shows how the "memorial" throws light on the ideological transformation of society those ideas would bring, setting new ethical guidelines for the ruling class at the crossroads between medieval feudalism and Renaissance absolutism. (shrink)

Background During the first weeks of March 2020 in Spain, the cases of severe respiratory failure progressively increased, generating an imbalance between the clinical needs for advanced life support (ALS) measures and the effective availability of ALS resources. To address this problem, the creation of triage committees (TC) was proposed, whose main function is to select the best candidates to receive ALS. The main objective of our study is to describe the clinical characteristics of the patients evaluated by the TC (...) of the Alcorcón Foundation University Hospital (AFUH) during the first wave of SARS CoV-2. Other objectives are to determine if there are differences between the patients considered candidates / not candidates for ALS and to analyze the functioning of the TC. Methods Retrospective observational study of all patients assessed by the AFUH TC. Results There were 19 meetings, in which 181 patients were evaluated, 65.4% male and with a mean age of 70.1 years. 31% had some degree of functional dependence, the Barthel median was 100 and Charlson 4. 58.5% were not considered a candidate for ALS at that time. The patients considered candidates to receive ALS were younger (72 vs 66; _p_ Conclusions The patients evaluated by the TC had a mean age of 70 years, high comorbidity and almost a third had some degree of functional dependence. More than half were not considered candidates for ALS at that time, these patients being older, with more comorbidity and a worse previous functional situation. TC decisions, based on objective clinical criteria, were almost always respected. Public institutions must get involved in triage procedures, which should and in our opinion must include the creation of TC in health centers. The implementation of Anticipated Decision programs (ADP) would help enable patients affected by triage decisions to participate in them. (shrink)

BackgroundAdvance directives imply the promise of determining future medical treatment in case of decisional incapacity. However, clinical practice increasingly indicates that standardized ADs often fail to support patients’ autonomy. To date, little data are available about the quality and impact of ADs on end-of-life decisions for incapacitated acute stroke patients.MethodsWe analyzed the ADs of patients with fatal stroke, focusing on: their availability and type, stated circumstances to which the AD should apply, and stated wishes regarding specific treatment options.ResultsBetween 2011 and (...) 2014, 143 patients died during their hospitalization on our stroke unit. Forty-two of them had a completed and signed, written AD, as reported by their family, but only 35 ADs were available. The circumstances in which the AD should apply were stated by 21/35 as a “terminal condition that will cause death within a relatively short time” or an ongoing “dying process.” A retrospective review found only 16 of 35 ADs described circumstances that, according to the medical file, could have been considered applicable by the treating physicians. A majority of patients objected to cardiopulmonary resuscitation, mechanical ventilation, and artificial nutrition, while almost all directed that treatment for alleviation of pain or discomfort should be provided at all times even if it could hasten death.ConclusionsThe prevalence of ADs among patients who die from acute stroke is still low. A major flaw of the ADs in our cohort was their attempt to determine single medical procedures without focusing on a precise description of applicable scenarios. Therefore, less than half of the ADs were considered applicable for severe acute stroke. These findings stress the need to foster educational programs for the general public about advance care planning to facilitate the processing of timely, comprehensive, and individualized end-of-life decision-making. (shrink)

The state of debates around the topic of `populism' has made clear the difficulties that exist to provide a coherent definition of the concept. There is much to be argued from historical, epistemological, comparative and sociological perspectives that may provide clarity to the uses of the term. As the world meets new scenarios of uncommon styles of doing politics and the themes of ideological polarization and social segregation take hold, the question about the value of `populism' as a theoretical tool (...) needs to be met with an affirmative stance that delineates its principal characteristics. The present text introduces the reader to four new perspectives that serve such a purpose and locates them among the relevant contemporary literature. (shrink)

El tema que trata este libro persigue dos objetivos principales. Por una parte, estudiar los saberes en el Renacimiento y en el Barroco, acercándose, entre otros autores, a Werner Rolewinck, Alfonso de la Torre, Pico de la Mirándola, Tomás Moro, Francisco de Vitoria y la escolástica, el Brocense, Montaigne, Descartes-San Agustín, Sebastián Izquierdo, Hobbes, hasta llegar a Leibniz. Y, por otra, elaborar una teoría de los saberes, esto es, considerarlos como modelos de significación y de ordenación del mundo, que van (...) configurando Europa y la modernidad europea. Así este libro reconstruye la historia de las variaciones de un discurso, el de los saberes en general y de sus disciplinas en particular. Muestra ese incesante esfuerzo por ordenar y comprender la realidad, que acabará sustituyendo un modelo teológico, o relaborando sus fundamentos, al ir pasando a primer plano la existencia, el sujeto moderno, encarnada en hombres concretos de «carne y hueso», con nombre y rostro. Y expresa la ensoñación de Europa, que a través de los mismos, fue buscando y ensayando: la concordia racional y mejor república que cabía esperar. (shrink)

In this article I propose an original view of the nature of shared intention. In contrast to psychological views (Bratman, Searle, Tuomela) and normative views (Gilbert), I argue that both functional roles played by attitudes of individual participants and interpersonal obligations are factors of central and independent significance for explaining what shared intention is. It is widely agreed that shared intention (I) normally motivates participants to act, and (II) normally creates obligations between them. I argue that the view I propose (...) can explain why it is not a mere accident that both (I) and (II) are true of shared intention, while psychological and normative views cannot. The basic idea is that shared intention involves a structure of attitudes of individuals –including, most importantly, attitudes of reliance – which normally plays the relevant motivating roles and creates the relevant obligations. (shrink)

This article offers a brief critical summary of our Populism(s) project to date, and introduces Thesis Eleven readers to the articles edited in this Special Issue. We comment on significant recent developments on populism scholarship, and reflect about the most recent developments currently taking place and their (potential) impact on current populism research.

This work offers a critical approach to Franz Rosenzweig?s conception of community in The Star of Redemption based on Helmuth Plessner?s political anthropology. First, it presents Plessner?s critique of social radicalism and of the apoliticism of the German spirit, and its parallelism with the Jewish spirit. Second, it delves into the passage from Hegel und der Staat to The Star in a communitarian key. Third, it dwells on the difference between community of blood and community of faith in Rosenzweig, together (...) with his theological-political translation into the distinction between the eternal people and the peoples of the world. Last, as a conclusion, it makes manifest the apoliticism of the Rosenzweigian proposal, and therefore, its incapacity to give an answer to the political problem in Weimar, of which its catastrophic consequences Rosenzweig did not know. (shrink)

Much syntactic research on Romance, and, specifically, on Spanish, has been devoted within the GB framework to examining the properties of a class of pronominal elements involving the so-called ‘arbitrary reference’.1 Here is a sample of such constructions.

Assessing physical fitness has emerged as a proxy of the health status of children and adolescents and therefore as relevant from a public health point of view. DAFIS is a project included in Plan Galicia Saudable of the regional government of Galicia. DAFIS consists of an on-line software devoted to record the results of a standard physical fitness protocol carried out as a part of the physical education curriculum. The aims of this study were: to obtain normative values of physical (...) fitness of the Galician school population evaluated in the DAFIS project, and to identify a reduced number of components and tests able to capture a significant amount of the variability in the physical fitness of children and adolescents. From an initial sample of 27784 records, 15287 cases were considered after filtering. Generalized Additive Models for Location, Scale and Shape were used for obtaining percentile curves and tables for each sex. Furthermore, a principal components analysis was performed, selecting the number of components by applying the Kaiser’s rule and selecting a subset of variables considering the correlation between each variable and the components. Percentile curves and normative values are reported for each test and sex. Physical fitness was better in boys than in girls throughout age groups, except for flexibility that was consistently higher in girls. Two main components were detected throughout age groups: the first one representing body composition and partially cardiorespiratory fitness and the second one muscular fitness. For boys and girls, waist to height ratio had the highest correlations with the first component in four out of six age groups. The highest correlation with the second component, was most frequently observed for the handgrip test both in boys and girls. This study provides evidence about the utility of school community actions like DAFIS aimed to track the health-related fitness of children and adolescents. The results suggest that fat mass distribution and muscular performance concentrate a high proportion physical fitness variance. (shrink)

We often appeal to the notion of an agent’s commitment to action to characterize, e.g., an agent’s faithfulness to a promise she has given to another, her robust disposition to pursue a goal she values or cares about, and her determination to stick to that goal. In the philosophy of action, that notion is often associated with the idea of an agent’s intention to act. In ethics, it is associated primarily with the idea of an agent’s commitment to, or endorsement (...) of, a certain norm. This essay argues that both these ideas, of intention and of normative endorsement, are central to the –or, at least, an—ordinary notion of an agent’s (psychological) commitment to action. In so doing, the essay also sheds light on important features of intention. -/- Keywords: commitment – intention – normative endorsement – stability across contexts – coordination. (shrink)

Recent studies have problematized on the lack of agreement between self-reported and proxied data in the field of road safety-related behaviors. Overall, and although these studies are still scarce, most of them suggest that the way we perceive our own road behavior is systematically different from the perspective from which we perceive others' behavior, and vice versa. The aim of this review paper was to target the number and type of studies that have researched the behavioral perceptions of different groups (...) of road users, contrasting self-reported behavioral data with those reported by other users, and their outcomes. This systematic review followed the PRISMA methodology, which allows for the identification of relevant articles based on the research term. A total number of 222 indexed articles were filtered, and a final selection of 19 articles directly addressing the issue was obtained. Search strategies were developed and conducted in MEDLINE, WOS, Scopus and APA databases. It is remarkable how road users perceive themselves as behaviorally “safer” than the rest of road users in what concerns the knowledge of traffic norms and their on-road performance. In addition, and regardless of the type of user used as a source, self-reported data suggest their perceived likelihood to suffer a traffic crash is lesser if compared to any other user. On the other hand, proxied reports tend to undervalue third users' performance, and to perceive riskier behaviors and crash-related risks among them. The outputs of this systematic review support the idea that the perception of road users' behavior and its related risks substantially differ according to the source. It is also necessary to increase the number, coverage and rigor of studies on this matter, perhaps through complementary and mixed measures, in order to properly understand and face the bias on road users' risk-related behaviors. (shrink)

This paper examines undergraduate business students' perception of corporate social responsibility in cases in which they have not attended any specific course either dealing with CSR or providing training in ethics. A survey was conducted of 535 Spanish business students as future managers. The results show that the stakeholders' perspective deserves a huge attention for those students considering what the keys of business success are. Significant differences in perception were nevertheless identified when a multifactorial analysis was undertaken. Female students are (...) more concerned about CSR issues. The maximization of value for shareholders is less valued by second- and third-year students than by first-year ones. The findings point to a number of important orientations for the future development of university curriculum. (shrink)