Suicidal Thoughts is a compilation of some of the most moving and insightful writing accomplished on the topic of suicide. It presents the thoughts and experiences of fifteen writers who have contemplated suicide-some on a professional level, others on a personal level, and a few, both personally and professionally. Through this collection, the reader is able to bear witness to the struggle between life and death and to the devastating aftermath of suicide. Suicidal Thoughts provides readers with a better understanding (...) of the reasons why some individuals give serious consideration to killing themselves. (shrink)

The field of narrative medicine holds that personal narratives about illness have the potential to give illness meaning and to create order out of disparate facets of experience, thereby aiding a patient’s treatment and resisting universalizing medical discourse. Two narratives of bipolar disorder, Kay Redfield Jamison’s prose memoir An Unquiet Mind and Ellen Forney’s graphic memoir Marbles challenge these ideas. These writers demonstrate that one result of bipolar disorder is a rupture to their sense of identity, making straightforward and (...) verbal forms of narrative impossible. During periods of relative mood stability, reliable memories of mania or depression are equally impossible. As a result, these memoirists seek to develop sources of self-knowledge other than memory and introspection, long the foundations of personal narrative. Finally, An Unquiet Mind and Marbles return attention to questions of selfhood at a time when scholarship on memoir rejects interpretations of life stories as clear and reliable expressions of identity. (shrink)

The symptoms and associated features of mental disorders can include profound and often debilitating effects on behaviour, mood and attitude, social interactions, and engagement with the world more generally. One area of living that is closely tied to mental disorder is that of our intellectual lives, pursuits, and projects. If the symptoms and features of mental disorders can have significance when it comes to intellectual activity, however, it is plausible that they can also have significance when it comes to epistemic-normative (...) questions. I.e., questions concerning whether a person conducts their intellectual activities as they should and what is the normative status of the outputs of those activities. In this paper, I introduce the concepts of _epistemic health_ and _epistemic disorder_ as tools to examine and help understand the relationship between mental health, mental disorders, and epistemic agency. To do so, I explore the connections between a key aspect of our epistemic lives, _epistemic self-trust_ and its associated maladjustments, _self-distrust_ and _excess self-trust_, and a specific mental disorder, _bipolar disorder_. Drawing upon empirical work on metacognition and extracts from Kay Redfield Jamison’s bipolar memoir An Unquiet Mind, I argue that there is a significant association between bipolar disorder, the symptoms of depression and mania, and the risk of self-distrust and excess self-trust. In this light, I suggest that consideration of this relationship helps us to recognise how self-trust can be the site of a significant vulnerability with respect to one’s epistemic agency that merits the label of an epistemic disorder. (shrink)

As we navigate post-pandemic educational recovery and future-oriented design, the Handbook of Research in Online Learning: Insights and Advances emerges as a scholarly authority to illuminate existing questions and catalyze conversations on imperative transformations in education. Tailored for researchers, designers, educators, administrators, and stakeholders, this handbook delves into the nuanced landscape of online learning. Curated by leading experts, each chapter provides a deep exploration of critical online teaching and learning dimensions. Whether you're navigating the complexities of instructional design, exploring the (...) impact of digital learning on diverse student populations, or delving into the transformative potential of AI, each chapter illuminates critical aspects of online education. It merges current significant works with unpublished manuscripts, embodying the interdisciplinary essence of online learning research. Grounded in diverse theoretical frameworks and research methods, it offers theoretical insights and actionable guidance for cutting-edge educational methodologies. This handbook is not just a compendium; it's an indispensable guide for shaping the future of education. Contributors are: Michael Ahlf, Stephen Allen, Tonya Amankwatia, Fatih Ari, Ismahan Arslan-Ari, Michael K. Barbour, Gail Alleyne Bayne, Karen Bellnier, M. Aaron Bond, Victoria Brown, George Bradford, William Cain, Sumie Chan, Lauren Cifuentes, Laura DaVinci, Gina Deckard, Shernette Dunn, Anne Fensie, Holly Fiock, Sara Flowers, Carla Karen Fortune, Theodore Frick, Michael M. Grant, Alexis Guethler, Dan He, Atsusi "2c" Hirumi, Charles B. Hodges, Stephanie Hostetter, Michael Houdyshell, Fethi A. Inan, Frank Jamison, Amir Kalan, Meryl Krieger, Jessica Lantz, Mary Lefaiver, Juhong Christie Liu, Noble Lo, Barbara Lockee, Fatemeh Marzban, Trey Martindale, Sara McNeil, Laura McNeill, Stephanie Moore, Martha Lorena Obermeier, Larisa Olesova, Jennifer Jihae Park, Sanghoon Park, Yujin Park, AnthTony Pina, Drew Polly, Yingxiao Qian, Thomas Reeves, Christiane Reilly, Jennifer Richardson, Aubrey Rogowski, Leanne Rutherford, Kay Seo, Sanga Song, Edwin Teye Sosi, Stefan Stenbom, Sharon Stidham, David Tai, Hengtao Tang, Torrey Trust, Shannon Tucker, Denis Unal, Lucas Vasconcelos, Charles Xiaoxue Wang, Florence Williams, Ying Xie and Fan Xu. (shrink)

This paper starts by investigating Ackermann's interpretation of finite set theory in the natural numbers. We give a formal version of this interpretation from Peano arithmetic (PA) to Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with the infinity axiom negated (ZF−inf) and provide an inverse interpretation going the other way. In particular, we emphasize the precise axiomatization of our set theory that is required and point out the necessity of the axiom of transitive containment or (equivalently) the axiom scheme of ∈-induction. This clarifies the (...) nature of the equivalence of PA and ZF−inf and corrects some errors in the literature. We also survey the restrictions of the Ackermann interpretation and its inverse to subsystems of PA and ZF−inf, where full induction, replacement, or separation is not assumed. The paper concludes with a discussion on the problems one faces when the totality of exponentiation fails, or when the existence of unordered pairs or power sets is not guaranteed. (shrink)

This essay describes an instrumental advocate’s development, engagement, and accomplishments in transgender health at the intersection of law and medicine. Reflecting on the evolution of insurance policy reforms in conjunction with the need to increase the availability of clinicians who can understand and respectfully treat transgender patients, the author demonstrates how visibility, tenacity, and ingenuity can create far-reaching change.

Personal narratives have become one of the most potent vehicles for advancing human rights claims across the world. Human Rights and Narrated Lives explores what happens when autobiographical narratives are produced, received, and circulated in the field of human rights. It asks how personal narratives emerge in local settings how international rights discourse enables and constrains individual and collective subjectivities in narration how personal narratives circulate and take on new meanings in new contexts and how and under what conditions they (...) feed into, affect, and are affected by the reorganization of politics in post-cold war, postcolonial, globalizing human rights contexts. (shrink)

In this paper we present an equivalence between the category of commutative regular rings and the category of Boolean-valued fields, i.e., Boolean-valued sets for which the field axioms are true. The author used this equivalence in [12] to develop a Galois theory for commutative regular rings. Here we apply the equivalence to give an alternative construction of an algebraic closure for any commutative regular ring.Boolean-valued sets were developed in 1965 by Scott and Solovay [10] to simplify independence proofs in set (...) theory. They later were applied by Takeuti [13] to obtain results on Hilbert and Banach spaces. Ellentuck [3] and Weispfenning [14] considered Boolean-valued rings which consisted of rings and associated Boolean-valued relations. To the author's knowledge, the present work is the first to employ the Boolean-valued sets of Scott and Solovay to obtain results in algebra.The idea that commutative regular rings can be studied by examining the properties of related fields is not new. For several years algebraists and logicians have investigated commutative regular rings by representing a commutative regular ring as a subdirect product of fields or as the ring of global sections of a sheaf of fields over a Boolean space. These representations depend, as does the work presented here, on the fact that the set of central idempotents of any ring with identity forms a Boolean algebra. The advantage of the Boolean-valued set approach is that the axioms of classical logic and set theory are true in the Boolean universe. Therefore, if the axioms for a field are true for a Boolean-valued set, then other properties of the set can be deduced immediately from field theory. (shrink)

The second edition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education: An Introduction for the Teaching Profession prepares students for the unique environment they will face when teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students at early childhood, primary and secondary levels. This book enables future teachers to understand Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education within a social, cultural and historical context and uses compelling stories and practical strategies to empower both student and teacher. Updated with the Australian Curriculum in mind, this (...) is a unique textbook written by highly regarded Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander academics. Each chapter opens with a powerful anecdote from the author, connecting the classroom to real-world issues. This updated edition has also been expanded to include information on fostering the unique talents of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people and allows the reader to reflect on classroom practices throughout. (shrink)

RATIONALE: The concept of evidence-based medicine is important in providing efficient health care. The process uses research findings as the basis for clinical decision making. Evidence-based practice helps optimize current health care and enables the practitioners to be suitably accountable for the interventions they provide. Little work has been undertaken to examine how allied health professionals change their clinical practice in light of the latest evidence. The use of opinion leaders to disseminate new evidence around the management of low back (...) pain into practice has been proposed. AIMS: The aim of this study was to investigate if physiotherapists' clinical management of patients with low back pain would change following an evidence-based education package, which utilized local opinion leaders and delivered the best evidence. METHOD: Thirty musculoskeletal physiotherapists from a Community Trust in North Staffordshire were cluster randomized by location of work, to two groups. The intervention group received an evidence-based programme on the management of low back pain, including advice regarding increasing activity levels and return to normal activity and challenging patients' fears and beliefs about their pain. The control group received a standard in-service training package on the management of common knee pathologies. The physiotherapists' clinical management of patients with low back pain was measured prior to training and 6 months post training. Outcome measures were based on physiotherapists completing 'discharge summary' questionnaires, which included information relating to the use and importance of therapies for treating their low back pain patients. RESULTS: There were few significant differences in treatment options between the intervention and control groups post training. Whilst there was some indication that physiotherapists were already utilizing aspects of psychosocial management for patients with low back pain, there was little change in what physiotherapists perceived to be important to patient recovery and actual clinical practice following the intervention. CONCLUSIONS: Psychosocial factors have been identified as an important factor in the recovery of patients with low back pain. This project incorporated the latest evidence on the management of low back pain and utilized the theory of opinion leaders to disseminate this evidence into clinical practice. Whilst there were some limitations in the overall size of the study, the results help to give an insight into the challenges faced by the health care system and researchers alike to ensure quality evidence is actually utilized by practitioners for the benefits of patient care. (shrink)

Sandplay is a growing field of interest for Jungian and other psychotherapists. _Sandplay - Silent Workshop of the Psyche_ by Kay Bradway and Barbara McCoard, provides an introduction to sandplay as well as extensive new material for those already using this form of therapy. Based on the authors' wide-ranging clinical work, it includes: in-depth sandplay case histories material from a wide range of adults and children over 90 illustrations in black and white and colour detailed notes on interpretation of sand (...) trays an examination of symbols and concepts used in sandplay. Clearly written and soundly based in theory, this book provides historical background for understanding sandplay as well as helpful discussion of how it works in a clinical context. Kay Bradway and Barbara McCoard bring their indispensable personal experience to the subject to stress the healing potential of sandplay. They also reflect on the nature of a therapy where the psyche works largely in silence. (shrink)

The recent “turn to matter” evident in material feminist theories of the more‐than‐human world offers distinct posthuman understandings of the world as continuously relationally entangled, emergent or materializing. In this paper, I consider how these premises both trouble conventional understandings of matter and/or materials, but likewise potentially revise and revitalize understandings of the political for health and inequalities, and for nursing. This is both timely and much needed given contemporary contexts of austerity‐driven neoliberalism in health care and the unprecedented growth (...) in disparities of wealth and well‐being. I wish to explore whether material feminisms allow us to retheorize connections between abstract theory and material concerns like health and inequalities, differently. This is not theory in opposition to practice or activism, but theory conceptualized as sets of entangled emergent practices, but also what constitutes the political, as more fully relational to and in praxis with health‐related activism. I will argue these theories further justify how practitioners can visibly care for and care more about social and health inequalities. Drawing mainly on the work of material feminist, Karen Barad, and her bringing together of queer and feminist theory, as well as feminist new materialisms and understandings of posthumanism, I discuss how this turn to matter together with meaning might transform understandings of health and inequalities. (shrink)

In this paper I take up a critical position in regard to the theme of debility around which this collection is framed. I argue that theorisations of ‘debility’ do little to progress theory and policy in regard to disability and share many of the problems inherent to the social model. I also suggest that the theorisation of debility is rooted in and reinforces ablebodied privilege. I begin with a critical analysis of the social model of disability and explore the dualisms (...) by which it either negates the body altogether or can only conceive the disabled body in negative terms. I then go on to explore how Puar's work on debility continues this negation of the disabled body. From this position I use the work of Inahara to excavate the foundations of ablebodied privilege. In Inahara's work gender is the analytic starting point, but for me white privilege is a much more effective mechanism through which to understand the impact and reproduction of ablebodied privilege— what McRuer refers to as ‘compulsory ablebodiedness'—which I argue underpins Puar's work. I conclude with some reflections upon how a critical analysis of ablebodied privilege might function and I reiterate its importance for a critical theory that goes beyond the mere repetition of binary structures of ablebodiedness and disability. (shrink)

In this fascinating study, the author analyzes the conceptual roots of molecular biology and the social matrix in which it was developed.

Founded on Eastern wisdom traditions, the martial art of Aikido focuses on moral and spiritual development through psycho-physiological harmonization of the mind, body and spirit. The purpose of this article is to explain the effects of Aikido practices on enhancing communication and mindfulness in entrepreneurial contexts. In addition, the article introduces research on Aikido aimed at enhancing cross-organizational and cross-cultural exchanges where unmediated, proxemic interpersonal interactions are supplanted by virtual (synchronous and asynchronous) communications media, such as e-mail and voice mail.

This article presents an approach for structured reflection by a designer through journal writing. The journal writing situates the agency of the designer, using a range of internal conversations as a way to expand horizons and perspectives. Through a structured approach using journal entries, experiences of the design process are introduced as reflective internal talkback. In the approach that is described, decision points and perspectives are negotiated and potentially contested through a series of voices of self as I, Me, You, (...) and We. These voices are intertwined within the journal narrative and are proposed as a useful framework for negotiating and effectively engaging with design complexity. The article introduces the conceptual backgrounds with reference to conversation as a process of learning. The specific dynamics of the journal writing approach are explained and then illustrated in a case study. The case study describes how the approach is applied for a specific design project. (shrink)

Kaye and Prisco draw our attention to one of the more obvious difficulties with all versions of the argument from design.

Recently, there has been a debate focusing on the question of whether groups can literally have beliefs. For the purposes of epistemology, however, the key question is whether groups can have knowledge. More specifi cally, the question is whether “group views” can have the key epistemic features of belief, viz., aiming at truth and being epistemically rational. I argue that, while groups may not have beliefs in the full sense of the word, group views can have these key epistemic features (...) of belief. However, I argue that on Margaret Gilbert's infl uential “plural subject” account of group belief, group views are unlikely to be epistemically rational. (shrink)

This paper argues that current iterations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex rights are limited by an overreliance on particular representations of sexuality, in which homosexuality is defined negatively through a binary of homosexual/heterosexual. The limits of these representations are explored in order to unpick the possibility of engaging in a form of sexuality politics that is grounded in difference rather than in sameness or opposition. The paper seeks to respond to Braidotti’s call for an “affirmative politics” that is (...) open to forms of creative, future-oriented action and that might serve to answer some of the more common criticisms of current LGBTI rights activism. (shrink)

This chapter explores critically ethical concerns arising from forms of suffering to which domesticated nonhuman animals are subjected in scientific instruction and research and within the industrial-factory-farm-food complex, as well as other contexts. Consideration is given to the views of Arthur Schopenhauer on suffering, René Descartes’s designation of ontological differences between human and non-human animals, and Donna Haraway’s reconfiguration of the relationship between human and nonhuman animals in scientific laboratory settings. Proceeding from a discussion of David Benatar’s “antinatalist” views the (...) focus of analysis is on the forms of suffering imposed on domesticated nonhuman animals by humans. In response to ethical concerns raised about the suffering inflicted on nonhuman animals in the course of scientific research, scientists have sought a “solution” in the form of genetically engineered nonhuman animals whose responses to painful stimuli are presented as modulated to reduce pain. This reductive conceptualization of suffering reduces the complexity of suffering to physical sensation alone and does not engage with the ethical issues involved. Drawing on the work of Emmanuel Levinas and Albert Schweitzer the chapter concludes that an ethical solution to the complex issues explored lies in refraining from exposing nonhuman animals to pain and suffering. (shrink)

Adult playfulness describes individual differences in framing everyday situations as personally interesting, and/or entertaining, and/or intellectually stimulating. We aimed at extending initial evidence on the interconnectedness between language use and adult playfulness by asking 264 participants to provide written descriptions of their understanding of playfulness and collected self-reports of their playfulness. We used the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count methodology to quantitatively analyze the language use in these descriptions and tested the associations with individual differences in participants’ age, gender, and (...) playfulness. While higher expressions in all measures of playfulness did go along with writing more content when describing playfulness, facet-wise analyses revealed differential findings ; but the effects were small. We found that being a women and younger age were related to writing longer texts, and we discovered additional associations between certain LIWC categories and age and gender. Our study expands the knowledge about adult playfulness and its manifestations in natural language use. We embed our findings into previous research and discuss limitations and potential approaches for replication studies. (shrink)

Michel Meyer offers a new beginning for philosophy rooted in a theory of questioning that he calls "problematology." Meyer argues that a new beginning is necessary in order to resituate philosophy, science, and linguistic analysis, and he proposes a global view of rationality by returning to the nature of questioning itself. For Meyer, philosophy does not solve problems or give answers but instead shows how propositions are related to a whole field of questions that give them meaning. Reason is identified (...) not with answers but with the question-answer process. Meyer pursues this new theory of reason and meaning in a critique of Western philosophy from Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle through Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and Foucault. He provides a detailed analysis of Descartes' notion of radical doubt and demonstrates its implications for the subsequent philosophical tradition that ignored the questioning process while pursuing an unshakable foundation for knowledge. Meyer argues that recent work in rhetoric points toward a theory of radical questioning and claims that the methods of rhetoric and argumentation must be turned back on philosophy itself in order to recover the original significance of metaphysics as the science of ultimate questions. (shrink)

Zur Didaktik mittelindischer Sprachen. By Klaus Mylius. Beiträge zur Kenntnis südasiatischer Sprachen und Literaturen, vol. 23. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2013. Pp. 100. €24. In the same series, with the same author and publisher:Lehrbuch der Ardhamāgadhī...., vol. 24...., 2014. Pp. 110. €29.Māhārāṣṭrī: Grammatischer Abriss und Wörterbuch...., vol. 25...., 2016. Pp. 131. €29.90. Śaurasenī: Grammatik und Glossar...., vol. 27...., 2018. Pp. 89. €29.90.Māgadhī: Grammatik, Textproben und Glossar...., vol. 29...., 2019. Pp. 74. €29.

El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo describir la funcionalidad discursivo-pragmática de sujetos adultos mayores sanos y con demencia leve, en sus aspectos de coherencia y coherencia pragmática, a través del análisis de producción lingüística oral, de ambos grupos, mediante la tarea denominada “monólogo audible” del protocolo MetAphAs. La muestra fue seleccionada de la base de datos NEUROLEN, en la cual se eligieron 9 sujetos sanos y 9 sujetos con demencia leve. Los datos fueron analizados desde una perspectiva de investigación cualitativa (...) descriptiva, con base en la funcionalidad discursiva-pragmática y la comparación con el marco teórico disponible. Los resultados arrojaron diferencias significativas en el desempeño de ambos grupos de senescentes. A pesar de presentar fallas en la producción del lenguaje a causa del envejecimiento fisiológico, los adultos mayores sanos son capaces de desarrollar comunicación funcional con su entorno, no ocurre lo mismo en el caso de los sujetos con demencia, debido a su deterioro cognitivo, el cual generaría dificultades en la producción discursiva. (shrink)

I defend Spinoza's claim that extension is an attribute that an indivisible substance, such as God, could have. However, in order to explain why, we must abandon two long held orthodoxies in Spinoza scholarship. First, Spinoza acknowledges only parts that do not depend on their whole. Second, God, considered as natura naturans, has no parts of any kind. Against these orthodoxies, I show that having parts which depend on their whole, for Spinoza, does not entail divisibility and that God, considered (...) as natura naturans, must have such parts in order to be extended. Along the way, we will have a closer look at Spinoza’s mereology and address apparently conflicting statements that Spinoza makes about the relation of part and whole that have long vexed commentators. (shrink)

A model is said to be -like if but for all , . In this paper, we shall study sentences true in -like models of arithmetic, especially in the cases when is singular. In particular, we identify axiom schemes true in such models which are particularly `natural' from a combinatorial or model-theoretic point of view and investigate the properties of models of these schemes.

Despite claims of ‘evidence based policy’, the place of empirical evidence in family law reform is ambiguous. There is ongoing socio-legal analysis of the differential value and uses of quantitative data and anecdote in detailing women’s experiences and advocating for change. In this paper, we engage with these issues through a focus on how data were constructed in a key government report, Every Picture Tells a Story, which was used to officially define the problem and outline recommendations in the controversial (...) 2006-08 reform of the Australian Child Support Scheme. Our discussion focuses on two questions: what legitimacy is accorded to different kinds of evidence in family law reform processes?; and, how is this legitimacy gendered? We applied feminist critical discourse analysis to the type, source and claims of the data included in the child support chapter of the report. Our findings indicate that both quantitative data and anecdote were used to privilege fathers’ financial interests and autonomy; in contrast, women’s voices and interests were marginalised. Thus, we argue the legitimacy of data is ascribed through its relationship to the gendered definition of the ‘problems’ of child support, rather than the type of data per se. (shrink)