Emotion-processing impairment represents a risk factor for the development of somatic illness, affecting negatively both health-related quality of life and disease management in several chronic diseases. The present pilot study aims at investigating the associations between alexithymia and depression, anxiety, and HRQoL in patients with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis ; examining the association between these three psychological conditions together with HRQoL, and thyroid autoantibodies status as well as thyroid echotexture in patients with HT; and comparing the intensity of all these clinical psychological (...) features in patients with HT versus controls. Twenty-one patients with serologically or ultrasonographically verified HT and 16 controls with non-toxic goiter or postsurgical hypothyroidism were recruited for this study. Serum thyrotropin and free thyroxine, as well as thyroid autoantibodies, were assayed. Alexithymia, depression, anxiety, and HRQoL were assessed with Toronto Alexithymia Scale; Beck Depression Inventory, second edition; Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale; and Health Survey Short-Form 36, respectively. A negative relationship between the difficulty to describe feelings and the cognitive component of depression was found. Besides, patients with seronegative HT had lower somatic anxiety than patients with HT who tested positive. Besides, no statistically significant difference was found between patients with HT and controls with regard to somatic anxiety. The present study suggests the relevance of alexithymia in patients suffering from HT, which may be intertwined with a possible state of underreported depression that is mainly expressed through physical complaints. Promoting the capability to describe and communicate feelings could contribute to psychological elaboration and coping with the disease and, consequently, to the improvement of self-management and perceived HRQoL. (shrink)

This study aimed at investigating depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms among healthcare workers and examine the role of expressive flexibility and context sensitivity as key components of resilience in understanding reported symptoms. We hypothesized a significant and different contribution of resilience components in explaining depression, anxiety, and stress. A total sample of 218 Italian healthcare workers participated in this study through an online survey during the lockdown, consequently to the COVID-19. The Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 was used to measure depression, (...) anxiety, and stress; the Flexible Regulation of Emotional Expression scale was used to measure the ability to enhance and suppress emotional expression; the Context Sensitivity Index was used to measure the ability to accurately perceive contextual cues and determine cue absence. Demographic and work-related data were also collected. DASS-21 cut-off scores were used to verify the mental status among the respondents. Correlational analyses examined relationships between DASS-21, FREE, and CSI, followed by three regression analyses with depression, anxiety, and stress as dependent variables, controlling for age, gender, and work experience. Enhancement and suppression abilities, cue presence, and cue absence served as independent variables. The results showed a prevalence of moderate to extremely severe symptoms of 8% for depression, 9.8% for anxiety, and 8.9% for stress. Results of correlational analysis highlighted that enhance ability was inversely associated with depression and stress. Suppression ability was inversely associated with depression, anxiety, and stress. The ability to perceive contextual cues was inversely associated with depression and anxiety. The regression analysis showed that the ability to enhance emotional expression was statistically significant to explain depression among healthcare workers. In predicting anxiety, age, and the ability to accurately perceive contextual cues and determine cue absence made substantial contributions as predictors. In the last regression model, age, work experience, and the ability to suppress emotional expression were significant predictors of stress. This study’s findings can help understand the specific contributions of enhancement and suppression abilities and sensitivity to stressor context cues in predicting depression, anxiety, and stress among healthcare workers. Psychological interventions to prevent burnout should consider these relationships. (shrink)

We present an overview of the recent developments in the study of the classification problem for automorphisms of C*-algebras from the perspective of Borel complexity theory.

We present an introductory survey to first order logic for metric structures and its applications to C*-algebras.

The association of resilience-related factors with frailty is a recent research topic. Dispositional optimism and context sensitivity are two psychological factors that differently contribute to individual resilience. This study aimed at investigating whether dispositional optimism and context sensitivity might contribute to a multifactorial model of frailty, together with established relevant factors such as cognitive and physical factors. This cross-sectional study involved 141 elderly outpatients aged ≥65 years, who were referred to the Geriatrics and Multidimensional Evaluation Clinic of the University Hospital (...) of Messina. We used the following measures: the Mini-Mental State Examination to screen for global cognitive functioning; 4-m gait speed and handgrip strength to measure physical performance; a 35-item Frailty Index to evaluate patients’ frailty status; the revised Life Orientation Test to gauge dispositional optimism; and the Context Sensitivity Index to measure context sensitivity. We found that LOT-R, CSI, and MMSE were all significantly associated with FI. Gait speed was only marginally associated with FI. The present study showed a novel association of dispositional optimism and context sensitivity with frailty among elderly outpatients. These preliminary findings support a multidimensional approach to frailty in which even peculiar psychological features might provide a significant contribution. (shrink)

We realize the Jiang-Su algebra, all UHF algebras, and the hyperfinite II1factor as Fraïssé limits of suitable classes of structures. Moreover by means of Fraïssé theory we provide new examples of AF algebras with strong homogeneity properties. As a consequence of our analysis we deduce Ramsey-theoretic results about the class of full-matrix algebras.

Around 1716, the French astronomer and academician Joseph-Nicolas Delisle took up a new project: the twinned topics of Chinese chronology and astronomy. Unable to access Chinese sources and not knowing any fellow savants who shared this particular interest, Delisle methodically made extracts and compiled data from the existing European literature. Among Delisle's papers at the Observatoire de Paris still exist the results of this research, including a list of the books he found relevant. This paper develops a close reading of (...) Delisle's notes from this period to stage his journey into a recondite arena of technical and textual analysis, and to examine the scholarly practices and generic conventions through which early modern European savants confronted the Chinese astronomical tradition. (shrink)

This paper, starting from the awareness of the anthropological finitude, aims to investigate the symbolic meaning of the catastrophe in today's society. With reference to E. De Martino’s and G. Anders’s anthropo - philosophical theses, the paper analyzes the representation of present catastrophes as Apocalypses without eskaton , in which the "blindness" of man and his inability to react is manifested. Both technological catastrophes directly caused by man and environmental disasters indirectly produced by anthropic neglect causes a widespread sense (...) of powerlessness, leaving man devoid of theoretical and practical means to guide his action. This implies, however, the necessity to widen human "feel" and the ability to understand the "meaning" of our actions in the world. This paper aims to examine all these issues through an ecocritic analysis of the novel The Road by C. McCarthy, in order to show that there is still a deeply human way to experience the fragility and to represent the catastrophe. (shrink)

El objeto principal de este trabajo consiste en discutir una propuesta de C. Alchourrón y A. Martino para hacer frente al problema de la fundamentación de la lógica deóntica, planteado por el dilema de Jørgensen. La propuesta criticada se basa en la idea de que no existe obstáculo alguno en compatibilizar la idea de que las normas carecen de valor de verdad con la idea de que poseen una lógica, una vez que se renuncia al "prejuicio filosófico" de que (...) es indispensable caracterizar semánticamente las relaciones y propiedades lógicas y se explica la lógica a partir de la noción abstracta de consecuencia, desligándola de las nociones de verdad y falsedad. Sostienen que el significado de los operadores deónticos, al igual que el de los términos lógicos en la deducción natural, puede quedar totalmente expresado una vez que se explicita su uso mediante reglas de introducción y eliminación. Para ilustrar su propuesta, pretenden ofrecer una fundamentación puramente sintáctica de la lógica deóntica standard. Mis críticas se centran en tres puntos: a) no utilizan auténticas reglas de introducción para los operadores deónticos; b) no derivan la lógica deóntica standard como pretenden haber hecho, y c) no se establecen criterios para relacionar las fórmulas del cálculo con el lenguaje normativo ordinario, con lo que no existen razones para considerar que se trata de una lógica deóntica. Defiendo la idea de que, a los fines de fundamentar semánticamente la lógica deóntica, sólo es necesario que existan interpretaciones admisibles que atribuyan valores de verdad a las normas, y que este requisito es cumplido por la semántica usual de la lógica deóntica standard, con lo que el dilema de Jørgensen resulta ser un seudoproblema. In this paper I discuss a proposal from C. Alchourrón and A. Martino with which they try to face the problem posed to the foundation of deontic logic by Jørgensen' s dilemma. Their proposal is based on the idea that there is no problem at all in compatibilizing the fact that norms lack truth values with their possession of a logic, once it is denied that it is absolutely necessary to offer a semantic characterization of logical properties and relations, and the abstract notion of consequence is taken as primitive. They claim that the meaning of deontic operators, like that of logical terms in natural deduction, is completely expressed through their use, which is explained by means of rules of introduction and elimination. As an illustration, they present a calculus with which they intend to offer a foundation for standard deontic logic. I make three objections: a) They don' t use real rules of introduction for deontic operators; b) They don' t have derived standard deontic logic as they claim; c) There are no criteria for relating the formulas with ordinary normative discourse; so there are no reasons for considering their calculus as a deontic logic. I claim that, in order to give a semantical foundation to deontic logic it is only necessary that there are admissible interpretations that assign truth values to norms, and that this requisite is satisfied by the usual semantic of standard deontic logic. I conclude that Jørgensen' s dilemma is a pseudoproblem. (shrink)

L.E.J. Brouwer made a mistake in the formulation of his famous bar theorem, as was pointed out by S.C. Kleene. By repeating this mistake several times, Brouwer has caused confusion. We consider the assumption underlying his bar theorem, calling it Brouwer’s Thesis. This assumption is not refuted by Kleene’s example and we use it to obtain a conclusion different from Brouwer’s. Thus we come to support a view first expressed and defended by E. Martino and P. Giaretta in [ (...) class='Hi'>Martino 1981]. We also indicate that Brouwer’s Thesis has many more applications than Brouwer dreamt of. (shrink)

Chapter One Triadomany defined You shall bind them in Three Classes; according to their Classes. William Blake, Milton In a manuscript of The Quest for ...

The basis of Muslim philosophy and science is the instruction embedded in the Quran. At an early date this tradition was enlarged and strengthened by the infiltration into Muslim culture of Greek philosophy and science through the translation of Greek classics by Muslims. The Indian tradition of thought also made its contribution. This book traces the development and interaction of these strands in Muslim thinking. The author is concerned to show both how philosophy and science are related to specifically religious (...) thought, and how they have made distinctive contributions to method and discovery. (shrink)

Designed as a companion to the study of apologetics and philosophy of religion, this pocket dictionary by C. Stephen Evans offers 300 entries covering terms, apologists, philosophers, movements, apologetic arguments and theologies.

C.S. Lewis was a major public intellectual in Britain, beginning from the late 1930s and continuing to his death in 1963. In both his non-fiction, especially The Abolition of Man, and his fiction, most importantly in That Hideous Strength, he offers a critique of rationalism and scientism that is often strikingly similar to those that Michael Oakeshott penned in the late 1940s and early 1950s. This essay examines the question to what extent this similarity is merely superficial, and to what (...) extent the two writers shared a similar basis for their views. Furthermore, it examines whether there is an actual thread of influence: had Oakeshott been reading Lewis before writing his critique of rationalism, and if so, to what extent did Lewis’s work inform Oakeshott’s? (shrink)

The 65th year of a scholar who has devoted 40 years to editing and elucidating Robert Grosseteste provides us with a collection of essays. Not surprisingly, they emanate from colleagues and former students of Richard Dales and reflect his interest, among other concerns, in Grosseteste's aspectus et affectus - range of vision and disposition of mind - those twin peaks with which the 13th century thinker helped to get Christian thought through Aristotle without mutual destruction.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Death in the Greek World: From Homer to the Classical Age by Maria Serena MirtoJoseph W. DayMaria Serena Mirto. Death in the Greek World: From Homer to the Classical Age. Trans. by A. M. Osborne. Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture 44 Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2012. x + 197 pp. 10 black-and-white figs. Paper, $19.95.Mirto (with Osborne) has given us a readable book on a topic of (...) perennial interest, full of learning but unencumbered by the development of a comprehensive argument with full scholarly apparatus (there are no footnotes or endnotes). I devoured it on a couple of airplane rides, during which its intelligent presentation thoroughly distracted me from my physical discomfort. The book provided a clear and concise review of important topics which I have not studied intensely for years, and it initiated me into recent trends and made me thirsty to approach its suggestions for further reading—while avoiding the spring by the white cypress, of course.The volume is an expansion and updating, as well as a translation, of the Italian original, La morte nel mondo greco (Rome 2007). Much scholarship from 2007 and later is cited, especially in discussions of Dionysian and “Orphic” material (chap. 2). Important additions are a useful section on the confusing (to the uninitiated) topic of hero cults and “an appendix outlining fundamental developments in modern studies of death in the Greek world” (x). The latter traces an interesting journey through the history of mentalities from R. Hertz (Durkheim’s student), through E. de Martino and P. Ariès, on to C. Sourvinou-Inwood’s disagreement with I. Morris about change and stability in early Greek attitudes toward death.Mirto articulates her goal in the preface as “a general synthesis of people’s relationships with death in the Greek world... [a] survey of the ways in which archaic and classical Greek culture dealt with the trauma of death” (ix). One does not judge such a book on its original interpretations and scholarly arguments; other criteria apply. For example, how comprehensive (or representative) is the selection of topics, approaches, and examples? How useful (or user-friendly) is the selection, especially for the audience to which it is addressed?At the level of overall structure, Mirto scores high for comprehensiveness. Any treatment of Greek death must devote major attention to the three topics she announces : (1) “beliefs about the afterlife, on the boundary between literary imagination and religious faith”; (2) “funerary rituals and material evidence of the cult of the dead”; (3) “ideologies... that construct an ideal model of death, making it an acceptable, perhaps even desirable, event” (ix). Chapter 1 on traditional views, mostly derived from Homer (also treated in chap. 5.1), commences Mirto’s discussion of the first topic, which is continued in chapter 2 on more [End Page 337] optimistic eschatologies, especially those associated with Dionysus and Orpheus. The second topic is treated in chapters 3 (on death, mourning, and last rites) and 4 (on markers, epitaphs, and tomb and hero cult). Chapter 5 is devoted to the third topic, with particular attention to the development of the polis and Athens’ patrios nomos and funerary legislation. R. Garland’s widely used survey (The Greek Way of Death [Ithaca 1985], 2d ed. 2001) covers much the same ground, though that book’s feel is quite different. Garland provides a richness of source and scholarly citations that Mirto eschews; for example, Garland devotes twenty-three pages (chap. 7 and its dense endnotes) to visits to the grave, while Mirto barely touches on the matter.At the level of specifics, Mirto’s comprehensiveness is uneven. Reflecting her expertise in archaic and classical poetry, as well as her engagement with the history of mentalities, discussions of literature and some sub-literary textual material are excellent, while she is less full but still useful on iconography (especially that of white-ground lekythoi and sculpture) and polis regulations. Perceptions of comprehensiveness, of course, will vary among readers. Because of gaps in my knowledge, I learned most from Mirto’s presentation of Dionysian and “Orphic” material: the gold lamellae, the Olbia bones, the Derveni papyrus (chap. 2, with the... (shrink)

This PhD responds to a two fold problem with the philosophy of design and the practice of design. The philosophical problem is stated as the discrepancy between a dominant philosophical framework that orders the world according to eternal essences and the actual conditions of the world in which we exist: the conditions of becoming and of flux. Commencing with a critique of the western metaphysical tradition of statics this research project proposes that we need to find a way of describing (...) an evolutionary model of practice, and by so doing to provide a revitalised narration of process. Consequently, the PhD explores the meanings of process through a critical examination of an ensemble of projects created by the author. Within this framework, a number of questions are posed in order to explore the proposition of a process practice. These questions are: What is process? How does one think process? Indeed, how do we get to grasp change? What are the consequences of process thinking on the practices of design, their fields of operation, and their productions? And, how can the thematising of process contribute to the design of the constructed environment, as well as reconfigure the practices of design? This thematising of process is argued to involve a necessary address to the constitutive and interrelated characteristics of process: space/time, movement, change, form and matter. Such an address is also seen to problematise the status of the object, the paradigms of representation, the modes of creation, the economies of exchange, and the structures of community, and to offer a modality of practice which would re-imagine the forms of social exchange to offer an ethical alternative to the tyranny of supply and demand, and thereby reconfigure the potential for dwelling. Making an overview of the discourses and practices engaging with theories of becoming, this thesis argues that almost all of these re-inscribe statics and that consequently the practice of design seems to drag behind our understanding of the world. Through a meditation on dis/appearance, in which the dynamics of being and becoming and the restless ambiguity of the gap are examined, the work establishes a process vocabulary, and makes clear through a material practice, the domains of process thinking, its inclinations, and the kinds of operations and procedures that flourish there. Foregrounding the fertile character of process practice, the PhD then proceeds to introduce notions of the movement-form, the duration-form, the transformational-form, the geometry of encounter, and to argue for physical form as an in-movement poise. Advocating new modes of approach and of attentiveness, and demonstrating new generative methods, this PhD argues that process thinking is not simply an operational stance, but an ethical position that identifies a field of care, and that consequently the design practices be expanded by taking seriously the relationship between process thinking and place making. Thus, this thesis concludes by advocating a mode of place making which, rather than reproduce planned environments as systems of control, configures place as the discursive contested place of encounter and exchange. (shrink)