A virtually infinite array of new discoveries are bringing increasingly evident transformations to all that we do, how we live, how all of us relate to each other, ourselves and the world. To think about this new time, it is necessary to experience the vertigo of placing our mind at risk. We are immersed in a comparatively new context of existence. A new humanity is being built, and it will thus represent a new society and a unique conception of (...) what a person is. We have established ourselves as the cities we pass through daily, as sets of flows, relations of power and strengths. Like a city, we are also information networks; power fields constantly brought into play, as we connect with spaces in an imbricated and interdependent way. We are a kind of species that, in face of its desire, is capable of putting this very existence at risk; of suicidal artists, kamikazes, who risk themselves and the planet. What is the specificity of this species? What is the possible (psycho)analysis? The aim of this article is to present and articulate the current changes and the absolute artificialism of our species in the transformation of its corporeity that devours and appropriates whatever presents itself, and which produces means and prostheses for the compulsive realization of our fantasies; new realities that increasingly appear on the horizon and affect our daily lives. The mind at risk is the state that enables the craziness of any act of creation. (shrink)

The author encourages the Church to conceptualize children-at-risk as whole, complex humans, who actively participate in their own development and experience multi-directional influences within the contexts of families, communities, cultures, and histories. This view of children requires an expanded understanding of the whole gospel moving past children-at-risk as subjects of evangelism and advocacy. Children are seen as vulnerable agents of God, participants in their own development, and co-participants with the Church in the missio Dei. Using a hermeneutic of (...) inclusion, a model of integral mission ‘to, for, and with’ children-at-risk is offered. (shrink)

The Expected Shortfall or Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR) has been playing the role of main risk measure in the recent years and paving the way for an enormous number of applications in risk management due to its very intuitive form and important coherence properties. This work aims to explore this measure as a probability-dependent utility functional, introducing an alternative view point for its Choquet Expected Utility representation. Within this point of view, its main preference properties will be characterized (...) and its utility representation provided through local utilities with an explicit dependence on the assessed revenue’s distribution (quantile) function. Then, an intuitive interpretation for the related probability dependence and the piecewise form of such utility will be introduced on an investment pricing context, in which a CVaR maximizer agent will behave in a relativistic way based on his previous estimates of the probability function. Finally, such functional will be extended to incorporate a larger range of risk-averse attitudes and its main properties and implications will be illustrated through examples, such as the so-called Allais Paradox. (shrink)

The global demand for information has brought in new developments in the publicity of discursive practices of many professional areas. This study takes the professional practice of International Commercial Arbitration, a mechanism to resolve business disputes outside the courts and traditionally considered as private, to explore the process of resemiotization of information, from the strategies used by corporations in their press releases to the news reports published by national and international media. It takes the theoretical concept of interdiscursivity in critical (...) genre analysis to show that texts are the result of a combination of a very complex range of resources brought about by genres, professional practices and professional cultures, which derive not only from the ‘local’ representation of the transnational arbitration process, but also from the different corporate identities and their ways of coping with the increasing publicity of the facts of arbitration. (shrink)

Student cheating has always been a problem in higher education, but detection of cheating has become easier with technology. As a result, more students are being caught and reported for cheating. While reporting cheating is not a negative, the rippling effects of reported cheating may be felt by some populations more than others. Thus, preventing cheating would be a preferable option for all involved.Identifying those at risk for being reported for cheating is a first step in developing preventive measures. (...) Previous research has attempted to do this through the use of self-report surveys, but such research takes considerable time and resources to conduct and suffers from low response rates and social desirability bias. To address this limitation in existing research, this study links existing data from records of other-reported cheating to university registration data in order to examine 6 cheating risk factors identified in previous research: maturity level, gender, grade point average, major, international student status, and fear of punishment. The results of the study suggest that international and transfer students, particularly those who are male, in high-risk majors, and have lower grade point averages, are in particular need of preventative education. Likewise, those faculty who teach in computer science, engineering and economics majors should do more to educate implement practices to reduce the likelihood of cheating. (shrink)

Occasionally, someone wishes to play Roland to the Saracens of critical theory, claiming, of course, privileged knowledge of the villains of civilized history. A few years ago, Stanley Rosen, sensing a tide of alien thinkers threatening the territory of canonical interpretation, raised the following anthem to stiffen the spirit of the resisting troops.

Patients in specialist mental healthcare services who are at risk of suicide may experience their struggles as existential in nature. Yet, research on meaning in life has been relatively scarce in suicidology. This qualitative study aimed to explore how patients at risk of suicide perceived their encounters with specialist healthcare professionals after a suicide attempt (SA), with special reference to meaning in life experiences. The study was conducted in specialised mental healthcare services in Norway. Data were collected via (...) individual interviews with eight patients aged 20–75 years. Using a four-step procedure, the interviews were analysed by systematic text condensation. The participants understood their feelings of shame, self-contempt and challenging life experiences as contributing factors to their SA. They perceived that existential themes in relation to financial difficulties, shame and trauma were resolved, while issues associated with the SA, such as death, loss and beliefs, were given less attention. The participants were either ambivalent about continuing to live or wished to rebuild a meaningful life. Overall, their experiences of meaningfulness were hampered. Assisting patients with meaning in life experiences may help them alter their life interpretations and increase their ability to rebuild their lives as meaningful. The present study should be seen as a contribution to meaning-informed approaches in specialist mental healthcare services. More research is needed to equip healthcare personnel in their overall aims of preventing suicide and supporting patients at risk in their efforts to live a meaningful life. (shrink)

This book examines historical approaches and current research and practice related to the education of adolescents placed at risk of school failure as a result of social and economic conditions. One major goal is to expand the intellectual exchange among researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and concerned citizens on factors influencing the achievement of poor and minority youth, specifically students in middle and high schools. Another is to encourage increased dialogue about policies and practices that can make a difference in educational (...) opportunities and outcomes for these students. Although the chapters in this volume are not exhaustive, they represent an array of theoretical and methodological approaches that provide readers with new and diverse ways to think about issues of educational equality and opportunity in the United States. A premise that runs through each chapter is that school success is possible for poor and minority adolescents if adequate support from the school, family, and community is available. *The conceptual approach places the research and practice on students placed at risk in a historical context and sets the stage for an important reframing of current definitions, research, policies, and practices aimed at this population. *Multiple research methodologies allow for comparisons across racial and ethnic groups as well as within groups, and contribute to different and complementary insights. Section III, "Focus on African-American Students," specifically addresses gender and social class differences among African-American adolescents. *Current reform strategies presently being implemented in schools throughout the United States are presented and discussed. These strategies or programs highlight how schools, families, and communities can apply research findings like the ones this book presents, thus bridging the often wide gap between social science research and educational practice. (shrink)

Humanity at Risk compares diverse approaches to the theme of global threats using the tools of philosophy, critical theory, and political thought alongside more practical, socio-political observations. By defining the idea of "global risk" more specifically, Editors Innerarity and Solana, and their contributors, believe we can understand how these risks should be evaluated, predicted, and managed within the framework of democratic societies.The goal of this book is to highlight more precisely the necessity, in the face of new global (...) risks, for new governance at a national, European, and global level. (shrink)

There is an increasing call for preventive state interventions in so-called families at risk—that is, interventions before any overt harm has been done by parents to their children or by the children to a third party, in families that are statistically known to be liable to harm children. One of the basic principles of liberal morality, however, is the citizen's right to be free from state intervention so long as no demonstrable harm has been done. On the other hand, (...) Joel Feinberg interprets the harm principle as a harm prevention principle, so that the risk of harm also might be a reason for interference. The question that needs to be asked, therefore, is whether enforced preventive intervention in the cases where families are judged to be at risk can be justified within the limits of liberalism. (shrink)

Hybrid techniques and perceptual technologies that merge the physical and the virtual dimensions of reality are generating a conceptual and experiential working space to reconfigure relationships between the perceiver and the perceived. We are entering a new perceptual paradigm where form, content, and context are merging, generating radical new types of spatial construction. Through the development of hybrid spatial technologies we can now hack the individual’s sense of space and relationship to the world (transforming the subject/object relationship). How can we (...) develop and use emerging spatial technologies to reconfigure spatial perception? Can we adapt and transform the dominant perceptive regimen, which is still based on the Cartesian split (subject-object separation)? We continue to see ourselves as separated from the environment and still need to digest the new changes brought about by hybrid techniques and methodologies that are shaping these new dimensions of space. How adaptable is our perception? The ability to alter our understanding of space provides us with a new form of spatial (self) control; sub-merging identities. What are the biological risks? What are the limits of stretching the perceptive range of the body? This article will examine these questions as an opportunity to humanise technology and create a ‘Human Centric Hybrid Literacy’. We will examine which technologies, techniques and navigation methodologies are being used by artists, technologists and designers to enable this new era of spatial augmentation and perceptual adaptation. Some examples include macroscopic navigation, 360 degree vision, new types of perspective (including third and fourth person perspectives) and reverse engineering. The role that hybrid space plays in the construction and transformation of perception through the practice of context engineering will be examined. Context engineering (Smith, 2013) is understood as an ‘intermediality’ practice for the engagement and augmentation of perception; giving us control over our senses, allowing us to adjust them in real time. Context engineering creates a new economy where we focus less on transforming content (as the primary activity), and more on how we can make our own perception the ‘content’. (shrink)

The book argues for realism defined as the assertion of the self-subsistence of entities. Trigg rejects Rescher's conceptual idealism, which maintains that since without mind there would be no way of distinguishing, and mind only sees a chair from a perspective, we cannot say what a chair is "in itself." This view keeps us on one side of the correspondence relation, Trigg says. He proposes that our concepts are "a window on reality." Peirce's "Final Agreement," what reality corresponds to, is (...) an attempt to bring together realism and idealism, but "final agreement" is an ideal limit to enquiry, not a future event. It is epistemologically, not ontologically, realist. (shrink)

THE OBJECTIVITY OF REALITY Reality and Mind We cannot talk or think about reality without talking or thinking about it. This is a truism which seems almost ...

This book examines matters of religious freedom in Europe, considers the work of the European Court of Human Rights in this area, explores issues of multiculturalism and secularism in France, of women in Islam, and of Muslims in the West. The work presents legal analysis and ethnographic fieldwork, focusing on concepts such as laïcité, submission, equality and the role of the state in public education, amongst others. Through this book, the reader can visit inside a French public school located in (...) a low-income neighborhood just south of Paris and learn about the complex dynamics that led up to the passing of the 2004 law banning Muslim headscarves. The chapters bring to light the actors and cultures within the school that set the stage for the passing of the law and the political philosophy that supports it. School culture and philosophy are compared and contrasted to the thoughts and opinions of the teachers, administrators and students to gage how religious freedom and identity are understood. The book goes on to explore the issue of religious freedom at the European Court of Human Rights. The author argues that the right to religious freedom has been too narrowly understood and is being fenced in by static visions of Islam. This jeopardizes the idea of religious freedom more broadly. By becoming entangled with regional and domestic politics, the Court is neglecting important nuances and is jeopardizing secularism, pluralism and democracy. This is a highly readable and accessible book that will appeal to students and scholars of law, anthropology, religious studies and philosophy of religion. (shrink)

High quality pedagogical practise is one of the most important mechanisms to support families and children at risk of social exclusion (RSE) in the early childhood and pre-school education system (ECEC). This paper describes and presents the results of the evaluation of the model for the prevention of adverse developmental outcomes of children with RSE achieved through quality pedagogical practise. The contribution of using the model to children's social inclusion was determined using a quasi-experimental quantitative method. 60 educators from (...) 15 kindergartens in seven districts of the Republic of Croatia participated in the study. Before and after six months of implementing the model, they completed the scale for assessing the child's social inclusion and the protocol for documenting pedagogical practise in relation to the child. The qualitative thematic analysis describes the ways in which the application of the model contributes to children's well-being. 30 educators who implemented the model were interviewed. The use of the model was found to contribute to better developmental outcomes for children at RSE and to educators' professional development and practise. The results suggest that the pedagogical practise of ECEC needs to be improved to prevent unfavourable developmental outcomes for children at RSE. (shrink)

Developmental dyslexia is considered to be most effectively addressed with preventive phonics-based interventions, including grapheme-phoneme coupling and blending exercises. These intervention types require intact speech perception abilities, given their large focus on exercises with auditorily presented phonemes. Yet some children with dyslexia experience problems in this domain due to a poorer sensitivity to rise times, i.e., rhythmic acoustic cues present in the speech envelope. As a result, the often subtle speech perception problems could potentially constrain an optimal response to phonics-based (...) interventions in at-risk children. The current study therefore aimed to extend existing research by examining the presence of potential speech perception deficits in pre-readers at cognitive risk for dyslexia when compared to typically developing peers and to explore the added value of a preventive auditory intervention for at-risk pre-readers, targeting rise time sensitivity, on speech perception and other reading-related skills. To obtain the first research objective, we longitudinally compared speech-in-noise perception between 28 5-year-old pre-readers with and 30 peers without a cognitive risk for dyslexia during the second half of the third year of kindergarten. The second research objective was addressed by exploring growth in speech perception and other reading-related skills in an independent sample of 62 at-risk 5-year-old pre-readers who all combined a 12-week preventive phonics-based intervention with an auditory story listening intervention. In half of the sample, story recordings contained artificially enhanced rise times, while in the other half, stories remained unprocessed. Results revealed a slower speech-in-noise perception growth in the at-risk compared to the non-at-risk group, due to an emerged deficit at the end of kindergarten. Concerning the auditory intervention effects, both intervention groups showed equal growth in speech-in-noise perception and other reading-related skills, suggesting no boost of envelope-enhanced story listening on top of the effect of combining GraphoGame-Flemish with listening to unprocessed stories. These findings thus provide evidence for a link between speech perception problems and dyslexia, yet do not support the potential of the auditory intervention in its current form. (shrink)

Advances in genetic diagnostics lead to more patients being diagnosed with hereditary conditions. These findings are often relevant to patients’ relatives. For example, the success of targeted cancer prevention is dependent on effective disclosure to relatives at risk. Without clear information, individuals cannot take advantage of predictive testing and preventive measures. Against this background, we argue that healthcare professionals have a duty to make actionable genetic information available to their patients’ at-risk relatives. We do not try to settle (...) the difficult question of how this duty should be balanced against other duties, such as the duty of confidentiality and a possible duty not to know one’s genetic predisposition. Instead, we argue for the importance of recognising a general responsibility towards at-risk relatives, to be discharged as well as possible within the limits set by conflicting duties and practical considerations. According to a traditional and still dominant perspective, it is the patient’s duty to inform his or her relatives, while healthcare professionals are only obliged to support their patients in discharging this duty. We argue that this perspective is a mistake and an anomaly. Healthcare professionals do not have a duty to ensure that their patients promote the health of third parties. It is often effective and desirable to engage patients in disseminating information to their relatives. However, healthcare professionals should not thereby deflect their own moral responsibility. (shrink)

Adolescent sexuality is one of the most important reproductive health issues that confronts healthcare professionals with moral dilemmas and legal issues. In this study, we aim to justify the at-risk adolescents’ regulations on access to key reproductive health services (KRHSs) based on principles of Islamic biomedical ethics and jurisprudence. Despite the illegitimacy and prohibition of sexuality for both girls and boys in Islamic communities, in this study, using 5 principles or universal rules of purpose; certainty, no-harm; necessity; and custom, (...) we argue that first, applying these principles in the context of the no-harm principle can provide the best interests of at-risk adolescents; second, it is permissible to provide KRHSs to these adolescents with their own assent, as long as necessary, only with the intention of preventing or reducing harm. In this framework, while preventing harm, it tries to provide the best interests of at-risk adolescent. Thus, the principle of no-harm requires that the government, by designating the responsibility to healthcare professionals, protects at-risk adolescents from harm, and obliges these professionals to choose and implement the option that best suits adolescents’ interests. (shrink)

Procedures were designed to test for the effects of working-memory training on children at risk of fluency difficulty that apply to English and to many of the languages spoken by children with English as an Additional Language (EAL) in UK schools. Working-memory training should: (1) improve speech fluency in high-risk children; (2) enhance non-word repetition (NWR) (phonological) skills for all children; (3) not affect word-finding abilities. Children starting general education (N = 232) were screened to identify those at (...) risk of fluency difficulty. Children were selected who were at high-risk (12), or low-risk (27) of fluency difficulty. For the low-risk children 10 received, and 17 did not receive, the working-memory training. All children in the treatment groups received working-memory training over a 2-week period. For the high-risk group, fluency improved and lasted for at least a week after the end of the study. Phonological skills improved in this group and in the low-risk group who received the training and the improvements continued for at least a week. The low-risk group who did not receive working-memory training showed no improvements, and no group improved word-finding ability. (shrink)

This essay concentrates on the term ‘children-at-risk’ taken on its own. However much risk and need are intertwined in practice, they are distinguishable as concepts. ‘Children-at-risk’ is not a virtual synonym of ‘children in need’. It is theologically suggestive and worth exploring because faith is always seeking understanding. All children are at risk in some way. Risks take various forms, each calling for an appropriate response. All risks are components of the ultimate risk of being (...) human, of falling short of the glory of God, of failing to be, to become and to persist in being, truly human, as measured in the fullness of Christ. Thus all risks have theological significance, unless God is denied totally, or restricted and stifled in a religious cave. God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit share the risk of being human mysteriously, really and unreservedly. This understanding of risk comes to us from our lived experience and from the revelation of God in Christ, as witnessed in the Scriptures. Action for children-at-risk and in need is obedience to the core of the Gospel in Jesus Christ. Engaged concern for children-at-risk brings us into practical difficulties, which are also theological. (shrink)

Macroeconomic dynamics and the at-risk-of-poverty population in Slovakia This paper deals with analysis and presentation of the core findings under the EU SILC 2009 project. Particularly we are oriented on study of the socially vulnerable groups of population identified according their income situation. As a sorting criterion for this purpose we use the standard methodology set by OECD and Eurostat. It means the 60% of the national median equivalized disposable income is applied for this criterion as the poverty threshold. (...) The national income variable is firstly calculated as a total income for each surveyed household and dived by the equivalized size of household. By this procedure the households of various structures are transformed onto generally accepted scale. The special attention of our study is oriented on the cluster of population living on income below the poverty threshold. For this population we calculate so called social deficit. Through this value we show the volume of financial means needed to upgrade the living standard of the population living bellow poverty threshold at least to the poverty threshold level.Special section of the paper is devoted to study of relation among the core macroeconomic indicators and level and size of the at-risk-of-poverty population during the period of last economic development, including both economic growth and economic recession. According our tentative findings we did not find the significant impact of economic growth on the status of socially vulnerable population. This finding however should be studied in broader context, with longer time series of relevant data and with broader set of explanatory variables. (shrink)

As a key constituent of China's approach to fighting COVID-19, Health Code apps (HCAs) not only serve the pandemic control imperatives but also exercise the agency of digital surveillance. As such, HCAs pave a new avenue for ongoing discussions on contact tracing solutions and privacy amid the global pandemic. This article attends to the perceived privacy protection among HCA users via the lens of the contextual integrity theory. Drawing on an online survey of adult HCA users in Wuhan and Hangzhou (...) (N = 1551), we find users’ perceived convenience, attention towards privacy policy, trust in government, and acceptance of government purposes regarding HCA data management are significant contributors to users’ perceived privacy protection in using the apps. By contrast, users’ frequency of mobile privacy protection behaviors has limited influence, and their degrees of perceived protection do not vary by sociodemographic status. These findings shed new light on China's distinctive approach to pandemic control with respect to the state's expansion of big data-driven surveillance capacity. Also, the findings foreground the heuristic value of contextual integrity theory to examine controversial digital surveillance in non-Western contexts. Put tougher, our findings contribute to the thriving scholarly conversations around digital privacy and surveillance in China, as well as contact tracing solutions and privacy amid the global pandemic. (shrink)

Residents in long-term care facilities and rehab hospitals sometimes ask healthcare professionals to help them do things that HCPs judge to be on balance harmful. A person with respiratory problems may ask for a cigarette, a diabetic for alcohol, a dysphagiac for food or fluids by mouth, a person at risk for falling for her walker, and so on. These requests raise two kinds of problems. The first pits residents against HCPs. Should HCPs ever help residents do what they (...) consider harmful? The second pits HCPs against HCPs. If HCPs disagree among themselves—some thinking that the resident should receive the assistance, others thinking not—what should be done? (shrink)

The scientific discovery of a range of genetic mutations has meant that people with a strong family history of cancer can find out whether they are at risk of developing cancer well before they have any symptoms. Genetic testing has opened up the possibility for otherwise healthy mutation carriers to access prophylactic treatments in order to minimise their risk. These include surgery to remove at-risk body parts, treatment with cancer drugs, medical surveillance strategies, self-surveillance and change in (...) lifestyle. Clinical experience to date has shown considerable resistance to the uptake of medical preventative measures despite their promise of risk reduction. This paper provides a summary review of the available literature on the medical, psychological, counselling and social aspects of genetic testing and the use of risk-reducing treatments by people who have been diagnosed with a genetic predisposition to cancer. It acknowledges what has been learned from these approaches but points to the similarity of the philosophical underpinnings of most of the research. It concludes by tentatively making some suggestions, informed by the literature, about new directions for guiding our understanding the genetically at risk and the factors that influence their decision-making. (shrink)

Some studies report that the sport context increases the risk of exposure to sexual violence for athletes. In contrast, others indicate a protective effect of sport participation against sexual violence, particularly among varsity athletes. Studies of sexual violence towards varsity athletes are limited by their failure to include control groups and various known risk factors such as age, graduate level, gender and sexual identity, disability status, international and Indigenous student status, and childhood sexual abuse. The purpose of the (...) present study is to fill in these gaps to determine whether varsity athletes are at greater risk than non-athletes of sexual violence towards them or whether, on the contrary, involvement in a varsity sport is coherent with the Sport Protection Hypothesis. Data for this article come from the ESSIMU study, a broad survey of students, professors, and other employees at six francophone universities regarding sexual violence on university campuses. A total of 6,485 students with complete data on sexual violence, athlete status, and gender were included in the study. From this total, 267 participants identified themselves as varsity athletes. Data were analyzed using a series of logistic regressions on each form of violence using athlete status as a predictor and characteristics associated with sexual violence victimization or distinguishing between varsity athletes and non-athletes as confounding variables. When considering all confounding variables in the regression analyses on four yearly incidence rates of sexual violence, the results revealed that being a varsity athlete did not significantly increase the risk of exposure to sexual violence at university. All considered other variables were more significant predictors of the past year’s risk of sexual violence victimization than athlete status was. (shrink)