This study presents findings from an ontological and contextual determination of the concept of dignity. The study had a caritative and caring science perspective and a hermeneutical design. The aim of this study was to increase caring science knowledge of dignity and to gain a determination of dignity as a concept. Eriksson’s model for conceptual determination is made up of five part-studies. The ontological and contextual determination indicates that dignity can be understood as absolute dignity, the spiritual dimension characterized by (...) responsibility, freedom, duty, and service, and relative dignity, characterized by the bodily, external aesthetic dimension and the psychical, inner ethical dimension. Dignity exists in human beings both as absolute and relative dignity. (shrink)

This study presents findings from an ontological and contextual determination of the concept of dignity. The study had a caritative and caring science perspective and a hermeneutical design. The aim of this study was to increase caring science knowledge of dignity and to gain a determination of dignity as a concept. Eriksson’s model for conceptual determination is made up of five part-studies. The ontological and contextual determination indicates that dignity can be understood as absolute dignity, the spiritual dimension characterized by (...) responsibility, freedom, duty, and service, and relative dignity, characterized by the bodily, external aesthetic dimension and the psychical, inner ethical dimension. Dignity exists in human beings both as absolute and relative dignity. (shrink)

Sustainability challenges typically occur across sectoral boundaries, calling the state, market, and civil society to action. Although consensus exists on the merits of cross-sector collaboration, our understanding of whether and how it can create value for various, collaborating stakeholders is still limited. This special issue focuses on how new combined knowledge on cross-sector collaboration and business models for sustainability can inform the academic and practitioner debates about sustainability challenges and solutions. We discuss how cross-sector collaboration can play an important role (...) for the transition to new and potentially sustainability-driven business models given that value creation, delivery, and capture of organizations are intimately related to the collaborative ties with their stakeholders. Sustainable alternatives to conventional business models tend to adopt a more holistic perspective of business by broadening the spectrum of solutions and stakeholders and, when aligned with cross-sector collaboration, can contribute new ways of addressing the wicked sustainability problems humanity faces. (shrink)

A clear understanding of terminology is crucial in any academic field. When it is clear that complex interdisciplinary concepts are interpreted differently depending on the academic field, geographical setting or cultural values, it is time to take action. Given this, the Glossary for Academic Integrity, newly developed by the European Network for Academic Integrity project, served as the basis for compiling a comprehensive taxonomy of terms related to academic integrity. Following a rigorous coding exercise, the taxonomy was partitioned into three (...) constituent components – Integrity, Misconduct and Neutral terms. A review of relevant literature sources is included, and the strengths and weaknesses of existing taxonomies are discussed in relation to this new offering. During the creation of these artefacts the authors identified and resolved many differences between their individual interpretative understandings of concepts/terms and the viewpoints of others. It is anticipated that the freely-available glossary and taxonomy will be explored and valued by researchers, teachers, students and the general public alike. (shrink)

Background The use of lengthy, detailed, and complex informed consent forms is of paramount concern in biomedical research as it may not truly promote the rights and interests of research participants. The extent of information in ICFs has been the subject of debates for decades; however, no clear guidance is given. Thus, the objective of this study was to determine the perspectives of research participants about the type and extent of information they need when they are invited to participate in (...) biomedical research. Methods This multi-center, cross-sectional, descriptive survey was conducted at 54 study sites in seven Asia-Pacific countries. A modified Likert-scale questionnaire was used to determine the importance of each element in the ICF among research participants of a biomedical study, with an anchored rating scale from 1 to 5. Results Of the 2484 questionnaires distributed, 2113 were returned. The majority of respondents considered most elements required in the ICF to be ‘moderately important’ to ‘very important’ for their decision making. Major foreseeable risk, direct benefit, and common adverse effects of the intervention were considered to be of most concerned elements in the ICF. Conclusions Research participants would like to be informed of the ICF elements required by ethical guidelines and regulations; however, the importance of each element varied, e.g., risk and benefit associated with research participants were considered to be more important than the general nature or technical details of research. Using a participant-oriented approach by providing more details of the participant-interested elements while avoiding unnecessarily lengthy details of other less important elements would enhance the quality of the ICF. (shrink)

Drawing from field theory, Gestalt therapy conceives psychological suffering and psychotherapy as two intentional field phenomena, where unprocessed and chaotic experiences seek the opportunity to emerge and be assimilated through the contact between the patient and the therapist (i.e., the intentionality of contacting). This therapeutic approach is based on the therapist’s aesthetic experience of his/her embodied presence in the flow of the healing process because (1) the perception of beauty can provide the therapist with feedback on the assimilation of unprocessed (...) experiences; (2) the therapist’s attentional focus on intrinsic aesthetic diagnostic criteria can facilitate the modification of rigid psychopathological fields by supporting the openness to novel experiences. The aim of the present manuscript is to review recent evidence from psychophysiology, neuroaesthetic research, and neurocomputational models of cognition, such as the free energy principle (FEP), which support the notion of the therapeutic potential of aesthetic sensibility in Gestalt psychotherapy. Drawing from neuroimaging data, psychophysiology and recent neurocognitive accounts of aesthetic perception, we propose a novel interpretation of the sense of beauty as a self-generated reward motivating us to assimilate an ever-greater spectrum of sensory and affective states in our predictive representation of ourselves and the world and supporting the intentionality of contact. Expecting beauty, in the psychotherapeutic encounter, can help therapists tolerate uncertainty avoiding impulsive behaviours and to stay tuned to the process of change. (shrink)

Happiness is typically reported as an important reason for participating in challenging activities like extreme sport. While in the middle of the activity, however, participants do not seem particularly happy. So where does the happiness come from? The article proposes some answers from a study of facially expressed emotions measured moment-by-moment during a backcountry skiing event. Self-reported emotions were also assessed immediately after the skiing. Participants expressed lower levels of happiness while skiing, compared to when stopping for a break. Moment-to-moment (...) and self-reported measures of emotions were largely unrelated. These findings are explained with reference to the Functional Wellbeing Approach ( Vittersø, 2013 ), which argues that some moment-to-moment feelings are non-evaluative in the sense of being generated directly by the difficulty of an activity. By contrast, retrospective emotional feelings are more complex as they include an evaluation of the overall goals and values associated with the activity as a whole. (shrink)

A equipe da Enfermagem é privilegiada, pois, é o cuidador que permanece vinte e quatro horas na assistência direta do paciente, podendo ter uma visão ampliada da pessoa no processo do adoecimento, tendo a oportunidade de incorporar e desenvolver os princípios dos Cuidados Paliativos (CP). Na perspectiva holística da saúde a religião/religiosidade/espiritualidade é uma das possibilidades de cuidado e manejo, porém ainda muito negligenciada pelos profissionais da saúde, seja por desconhecimento ou preconceitos e tabus, mas que se torna essencial no (...) cuidado de pacientes em CP. Por meio deste relato de experiência, objetiva-se ressaltar a importância da religião/religiosidade/espiritualidade, no cuidado e manejo de pacientes em CP, a partir da experiência de uma profissional da enfermagem, sua prática em cuidados e docência, supervisionando alunos com pacientes em contexto dos CP. Anos acompanhando alunos na prática, demonstraram que os profissionais da enfermagem têm dificuldade de identificar o Sofrimento Espiritual (SE) dos pacientes, e quando identificavam, não sabiam o que fazer com esta demanda, delegando a outros profissionais da equipe, que também tinham dificuldades, causando um (des)cuidado na Dimensão Espiritual (DE) do paciente em CP, trazendo-o mais sofrimento e desconforto com sua finitude. Como resultado dessas reflexões, está sendo desenvolvida uma pesquisa de pós-doutorado, destinada a identificar a DE, construção de roteiro de educação permanente. Em síntese, esses profissionais tendo a capacitação para identificar o SE, explorar e cuidar da DE, poderão promover a proteção da saúde mental, tanto do paciente em CP quanto sua, e tornarem-se profissionais mais sensíveis na finitude. (shrink)

Economist Robert Pollin argues that the United States needs to try to implement full employment and how it can help the economy.

Small GTPases in the Rho family act as major nodes with functions beyond cytoskeletal rearrangements shaping the Caenorhabditis elegans embryo during development. These small GTPases are key signal transducers that integrate diverse developmental signals to produce a coordinated response in the cell. In C. elegans, the best studied members of these highly conserved Rho family small GTPases, RHO‐1/RhoA, CED‐10/Rac, and CDC‐42, are crucial in several cellular processes dealing with cytoskeletal reorganization. In this review, we update the functions described for the (...) Rho family small GTPases in spindle orientation and cell division, engulfment, and cellular movements during C. elegans embryogenesis, focusing on the Rho subfamily Rac.Please also see the video abstract here. (shrink)

Portion sizes of meals have been becoming progressively larger which contributes to the onset of obesity. So far, little research has been done on the influence of body weight on portion size preferences. Therefore, we assessed whether Body Mass Index, as well as other selected factors, contribute to the estimation of food portions weight and the subjective perception of portion sizes. Through online questionnaires, the participants were asked to estimate the weight of pictured foods in the first study. In the (...) second study, the participants indicated how the depicted varying portion sizes of different meals relate to their actual consumed real-life portion sizes. A total of 725 and 436 individuals were included in the statistical analysis in the first and second study, respectively. BMI and gender had a small effect on the capacity to estimate the weight of foods. The main predictor for portion size choices was the factor gender with men estimating ideal portion sizes as larger than women. Further, age and hunger together with external and restrictive eating behaviors were among the deciding factors for portion size choices. As expected, externally motivated eaters chose bigger portions while restrictive individual smaller ones. Gender- and age-related differences in portion size preferences likely reflect distinct energy requirements. The individuals with a higher BMI do not differ strongly from other BMI groups in their portion-related preferences. Therefore, other factors such as meal frequency, snacking, or a lifestyle, may contribute more to the onset, development, and maintenance of overweight. (shrink)

BackgroundCommunity engagement is a key component in health research. One of the ways health researchers ensure community engagement is through Community Advisory Boards (CABs). The capacity of CABs to properly perform their role in clinical research has not been well described in many resource limited settings. In this study, we assessed the capacity of CABs for effective community engagement in Uganda.MethodsWe conducted a cross sectional study with mixed methods. We used structured questionnaires and key informant interviews (KII) to collect data (...) from CAB members, trial investigators, and community liaison officers. For quantitative data, we used descriptive statistics while for qualitative data we used content analysis.ResultsSeventy three CAB members were interviewed using structured questionnaires; 58.9% males, median age 49 years (IQR 24–70), 71.2% had attained tertiary education, 42.5% never attended any research ethics training, only 26% had a training in human subject protection, 30.1% had training in health research, 50.7% never attended any training about the role of CABs, and 72.6% had no guidelines for their operation. On the qualitative aspect, 24 KIIs cited CAB members to have some skills and ability to understand and review study documents, offer guidance on community norms and expectations and give valuable feedback to the investigators. However, challenges like limited resources, lack of independence and guidelines, and knowledge gaps about research ethics were cited as hindrances of CABs capacity.ConclusionThough CABs have some capacity to perform their role in the Ugandan setting, their functionality is limited by lack of resources to facilitate their work, lack of independence, lack of guidelines for their operations and limited knowledge regarding issues of research ethics and protection of the rights of trial participants. (shrink)

Written by two of the leading figures in the field, this is a lucid and systematic introduction to semantics as applied to transformational grammars of the ...

Aging is characterized by the decline and deterioration of functional cells and results in a wide variety of molecular damages and reduced physical and mental capacity. The knowledge on aging process is important because life expectancy is expected to rise until 2050. Aging cannot be considered a homogeneous process and includes different trajectories characterized by states of fitness, frailty, and disability. Frailty is a dynamic condition put between a normal functional state and disability, with reduced capacity to cope with stressors. (...) This geriatric syndrome affects physical, neuropsychological, and social domains and is driven by emotional and spiritual components. Sarcopenia is considered one of the determinants and the biological substrates of physical frailty. Physical and cognitive frailty are separately approached during daily clinical practice. The concept of motoric cognitive syndrome has partially changed this scenario, opening interesting windows toward future approaches. Thus, the purpose of this manuscript is to provide an excursus on current clinical practice, enforced by aneddoctical cases. The analysis of the current state of the art seems to support the urgent need of comprehensive organizational model incorporating physical and cognitive spheres in the same umbrella. (shrink)

Introduction: Time and the shared world -- The "subject" of inquiry -- Mineness and the practical first-person -- Being and otherness: Sartre's critique -- Heideggerian aprioricity and the categories of being -- The temporality of care -- Fursorge: acknowledging the other Dasein -- Authenticity, inauthenticity, and the extremes of Fursorge -- Conclusion.

Plato and the Metaphysical Feminine offers a new interpretation of the role of the female and the feminine in Plato's political dialogues--the Republic, Laws, and Timaeus--informed by Deleuze's film theory and Irigaray's psychoanalytic feminism. Irene Han reads Plato against the grain in order to close the gap between the vitalists and Plato, instead of magnifying their differences. Han explores the ambivalence that the vitalist tradition, Irigaray, and Derrida have towards Platonism. The application of Deleuzian and Irigarayan concepts to the (...) ancient texts produces a new reading of Plato, focusing on the centrality and importance of motion, change, sensuality, and becoming to Platonic philosophy and, thereby, reinterprets Platonic philosophy in the direction of Heraclitus rather than Parmenides: as feminist rather than masculinist, and as mimetic. It therefore prioritizes Heraclitean principles of movement and flux over Form, the feminine over masculine, and materiality, feeling, or sensation over abstraction and universal essence. Han's exploration illustrates how, in Plato's thought, the feminine maps itself onto the plane of phenomena--a plane associated with vitalist themes such as motion, tactility, and change (metabolē). Platonic metaphysics is recontextualized by illustrating how Being expresses itself through processes of (feminine) becoming. With this reformulation, the resulting account of Platonic Being destabilizes any purported Platonic dualism. (shrink)

Contemporary Jewish Philosophy offers a comprehensive survey of Jewish philosophy in the twentieth century. At the same time, it gives an appraisal of the meaning of this philosophy within the context of the history of philosophy. Jewish philosophers who are introduced are the most important in this age: Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, Leo Strauss, Emmanuel Le;vinas. The problems which are emphasized are the crisis of humanism and the quest for new thinking. This book provides a new approach to (...) philosophical anthropology. (shrink)

Medieval Sephardi literature was a catalytic presence in the Jewish intellectual landscape of the eighteenth century. In _Sepharad in Ashkenaz_, a celebrated group of contributors provides the first, comprehensive evaluation of the medieval Sephardi canon in the Ashkenazi world. These essays explore the introduction of Sephardi texts into Jewish discourse, the Ashkenazi reception of the Sephardi masters, and the resulting literary innovations that forever changed Jewish scholarship. Through a series of case studies and analyses of works by Maimonides, Spinoza, and (...) Kant, among others, this volume unravels an intricate diasporic network that led to Jewish modernity. (shrink)

Research from behavioural sciences shows that people reach decisions in a much less rational and well-considered way than was often assumed. The doctrine of informed consent, which is an important ethical principle and legal requirement in medical practice, is being challenged by these insights into decision-making and real-world choice behaviour. This article discusses the implications of recent insights of research on decision-making behaviour for the informed consent doctrine. It concludes that there is a significant tension between the often non-rational choice (...) behaviour and the traditional theory of informed consent. Responsible ways of dealing with or solving these problems are considered. To this end, patient decisions aids are discussed as suitable interventions to support autonomous decision-making. However, current PDAs demand certain improvements in order to protect and promote autonomous decision-making. Based on a conception of autonomy, we will argue which type of improvements are needed. (shrink)

This book offers a major reassessment of Peter Abelard's modal logic and theory of modalities, presenting them as far more uniform and consistent than was until now recognized. Irene Binini offers new ways of connecting Abelard's modal views with other parts of his logic, semantics, metaphysics and theology. Further, the work also provides a comprehensive study of the logical context in which Abelard's theories originated and developed, by presenting fresh evidence about many 11th- and 12th-century sources that are still (...) unpublished. This analysis sheds new light on the relations between Abelard and ancient authors such as Aristotle, Boethius, and Priscian, as well as between Abelard and his contemporaries, such as Anselm of Canterbury, William of Champeaux, Joscelin of Soissons, and Alberic of Paris. (shrink)