The prevalence of dementia is increasing with the ever-growing population of older adults. Non-pharmacological, music-based interventions, including sensory stimulation, were reported by the Lancet Commission in 2020 to be the first-choice approach for managing the behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia. Low frequency sinusoidal vibration interventions, related to music interventions through their core characteristics, may offer relief for these symptoms. Despite increasing attention on the effectiveness of auditory music interventions and music therapy for managing dementia, this has not included low (...) frequency vibration. This scoping review, following the JBI methodology guidelines, was conducted to investigate participants’ responses to both sound and mechanical vibration, the characteristics of the delivered interventions, methodological challenges, and the specifics of the research experiments reported. An extensive search was conducted in BMC, CINAHL, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, EMBASE, ERIC, MEDLINE, Pedro, ProQuest Central, PsycINFO, Scopus, and Web of Science. Current Controlled Trials, Clinical Trials, and Google Scholar were also searched as well as a hand search in relevant journals. Studies on adults with all types of dementia, investigating tactile low frequency sound or mechanical vibration in any context were considered. Data from eight full-length studies were extracted using the data extraction table developed by the authors and were included in the analysis and critical appraisal. Issues in quality related to, for example, control groups and blinding. Few studies addressed participants’ subjective responses to the interventions. Reporting on the intervention characteristics was unclear. It appeared more frequent sessions led to better outcomes and home-based interventions potentially addressing the issue of access and feasibility. Future research should include neuroimaging to measure and confirm the hypothesised mechanism of cerebral coherence. Standardised reporting of intervention characteristics is also needed to ensure replicability of the experiments. Higher quality research is needed to investigate the impact and effect of low frequency vibration for the symptoms of dementia and compare outcomes in meta-syntheses. (shrink)

The impact of COVID-19 on chronic pain in non-infected vulnerable South American subjects is unknown. Healthcare workers are at increased risk for CP. During the pandemic, many HCWs with CP kept working. Knowing how cognition is affected by CP in these subjects is an important subject for work safety. The attention domain has a pivotal role in cognition. Previously, the Continuous Visual Attention Test was applied to detect specific attention deficits in fibromyalgia patients. The present investigation described CP prevalence in (...) non-infected Brazilian HCWs during the pandemic and assessed HCWs’ attentional performance with the aid of the CVAT. This study was carried out at a reference University Hospital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. HCWs of both sexes, aged 20 or older, were interviewed from August to December 2020. A 90-second version of the CVAT was performed. The average reaction time to correct responses and the respective intraindividual reaction time variability for correct responses to target was determined. Omission and commission errors were also calculated. Then, for each participant we calculated the Z-scores of the CVAT variables based on the distribution of CVAT performance of 211 healthy subjects. HCWs with Z-scores > 1.64 were classified as significantly impaired. From the 154 selected HCWs, 72 reported CP during the pandemic. Post hoc ANCOVAs showed that the average correct VRT was significantly higher in the CP group than in the non-CP group. The percentage of participants with impaired VRT performance was 30% in the CP group and 16% in the non-CP group. The difference between these two propositions reached significance. As VRT is associated with the sustained-attention subdomain, our data suggest that this subdomain is disrupted in the CP group. (shrink)

The goal of this study is analyse the influence of perceived supervisor support (PSS) by employees at a micro level and the role of the cultural values of “power distance” and “masculinity” at a macro level on direct employee participation in decision making (PDM). Furthermore, the influence of the gender of managers and employees is taken into account. The analysis is based upon the Sixth European Working Conditions Survey carried out by Eurofound in 2016. The results of a Hierarchical linear (...) model indicate that all predictors significantly influenced PDM and PSS positively and cultural values negatively. When the gender of managers and employees is considered, the findings suggest that PSS has a larger impact on PDM when male managers address female employees. Regarding the moderating effect of PSS on cultural values, it is shown that masculinity and power distance lose importance when employees have the support of their supervisors. (shrink)

The present study investigated the mediating role of conceptions of learning in the relationship between metacognition and academic outcomes among middle school students. The self-report ‘Learning Conceptions Questionnaire’ (LCQ) and ‘Metacognitive questionnaire on the method of study’ (QMS) were administered to 136 middle school students and their academic outcomes were collected. Correlation analyses revealed that within metacognition only self-assessment was positively correlated with academic outcomes. Mediation analysis indicated that a conception of learning as internal attribution of success and failure was (...) significantly involved as mediator in the relationship between metacognition and academic achievements. The present study permitted to advance our knowledge about the relationship between metacognition and academic achievements and it opened the way to practical implications. (shrink)

In Brazil, induced abortion in adolescents has been frequent in less-advantaged socioeconomic classes, and the vulnerability of these adolescents has not been addressed. Given this context, the present study sought to investigate the relationship between the practice of abortion and vulnerability in adolescents. This was a descriptive cross-sectional study of 201 adolescents who completed a structured questionnaire that allowed the analysis of variables with respect to intent to abort. The profile of the pregnant adolescents in the sample studied was the (...) following: average age, 16.1 years; stable partner; mulatas; did not use condoms during sexual relations; precocious with respect to their first sexual relations; and did not plan the pregnancy. According to the classification of the World Health Organization, 81.59% of the subjects‘ abortions were known to be induced. Twenty-one were vulnerable to induced abortion; of these, 13 reported forced sexual intercourse, of whom 8 reported that they had suffered associated violence. These results indicate that sexual violence and unwanted pregnancy subject adolescents to a context of greater vulnerability to induced abortion. Thus, it is suggested that this relationship should be considered from the perspective of bioethics and human rights, but always respecting the cultural values of the society in which the adolescents live, as well as their human dignity. (shrink)

In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy in Music Education, editors Wayne D. Bowman and Ana Lucia Frega have drawn together a variety of philosophical perspectives from the profession's most exciting scholars from all over the world. Rather than relegating philosophical inquiry to moot questions and abstract situations, the contributors to this volume address everyday concerns faced by music educators everywhere. Emphasizing clarity, fairness, rigour, and utility above all, The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy in Music Education will challenge music educators (...) all over the world to make their own decisions and ultimately contribute to the conversation themselves. (shrink)

In this paper we review the literature on social learning mechanisms in the domestic chick, focusing largely on work from our own laboratories. The domestic chicken is a social-living bird that searches for food in flocks, avoids predators by following warnings from other flock members, and forms social hierarchies. All of these behaviors develop throughout ontogeny, largely during the very early stages post-hatch. Newly hatched chicks appear to have predispositions to orient towards and to pay greatest attention to the biologically (...) relevant characteristics of their immediate environment from which they may subsequently learn. In addition, the chick has a lateralized brain; left and right hemispheres being specialized for certain behavioral functions and responses, and it appears that such behavioral lateralization is also transposed onto certain social learning situations, which will also be considered. Keywords: social learning; social cognition; chick; brain asymmetry. (shrink)

This important new book provides a multidisciplinary overview on different discourses and practices, exploring cutting-edge questions from the burgeoning field of artistic research.

This paper describes a practice innovation: the addition of formal weekly discussions of patients with prolonged PICU stay to reduce healthcare providers’ moral distress and decrease length of stay for patients with life-threatening illnesses. We evaluated the innovation using a pre/post intervention design measuring provider moral distress and comparing patient outcomes using retrospective historical controls. Physicians and nurses on staff in our pediatric intensive care unit in a quaternary care children's hospital participated in the evaluation. There were 60 patients in (...) the interventional group and 66 patients in the historical control group. We evaluated the impact of weekly meetings to establish goals of care for patients with longer than 10 days length of stay in the ICU for a year. Moral distress was measured intermittently and reported moral distress thermometer scores fluctuated. "Clinical situations" represented the most frequent contributing factor to moral distress. Post intervention, overall moral distress scores, measured on the moral distress scale revised, were lower for respondents in all categories, and on three specific items. Patient outcomes before and after PEACE intervention showed a statistically significant decrease in PRISM indexed LOS, a statistically significant increase in both code status changes DNR, and in-hospital death, with no change in patient 30 or 365 day mortality. The addition of a clinical ethicist and senior intensivist to weekly inter-professional team meetings facilitated difficult conversations regarding realistic goals of care. The study demonstrated that the PEACE intervention had a positive impact on some factors that contribute to moral distress and can shorten PICU length of stay for some patients. (shrink)

The general question to be considered in this paper points to the nature of the world described by chemistry: what is macro-chemical ontology like? In particular, we want to identify the ontological categories that underlie chemical discourse and chemical practice. This is not an easy task, because modern Western metaphysics was strongly modeled by theoretical physics. For this reason, we attempt to answer our question by contrasting macro-chemical ontology with the mainstream ontology of physics and of traditional metaphysics. In particular, (...) we introduce the distinction between stuff-ontology, proper of chemistry, and individual-ontology, proper of physics. These two ontologies differ from each other in the basic categories of their own structures. On this basis, we characterize individual-ontology in such a way that the features of stuff-ontology will arise by contrast with it. (shrink)

Moral distress is a well-documented phenomenon for health care providers (HCPs). Exploring HCPs’ perceptions of participation in moral distress interventions using qualitative and quantitative methods enhances understanding of intervention effectiveness. The purpose of this study was to measure and describe the impact of a two-phased intervention on participants’ moral distress. Using a cross-over design, the project aimed to determine if the intervention would decrease moral distress, enhance moral agency, and improve perceptions about the work environment. We used quantitative instruments and (...) explored participants’ perceptions of the intervention using semi-structured interviews. Participants were from inpatient settings, within three major hospitals of a large, urban healthcare system in the Midwest, United States. Participants included nurses (80.6%) and other clinical care providers. Using generalized linear mixed modeling we assessed the change in each of the outcome variables over time controlling for groups. Interviews were audiotaped and professionally transcribed. The written narratives were coded into themes. The change in scores on study instruments trended in the desired direction however did not meet statistical significance. Qualitative interviews revealed that intervention effectiveness was derived from a combination of learning benefits, psychological benefits, and building community that promoted moral agency. Findings demonstrate a clear link between moral distress and moral agency and suggest that Facilitated Ethics Conversations can enhance the work environment. Findings provide insight for developing evidenced-based approaches to address moral distress of hospital nurses. (shrink)

In 1929 Ludwig Wittgenstein met Raffaello Piccoli, the Serena Professor of Italian, with whom he arranged several meetings in the following terms. For a long time their intellectual friendship was suggested only by the occurrences of Piccoli’s name in Wittgenstein’s Cambridge Pocket Diaries, then a paper about Piccoli including hypothesis on his meetings with Wittgenstein was published (Marjanović 2005), and more recently, the diaries of a student of both Piccoli and Wittgenstein in 1929 – 1930 were discovered. The new material, (...) on the background of data now available about Piccoli’s life and works, throws new light onto his relationship with Wittgenstein, and hypothesis on the topics of their conversations are also advanced. Piccoli’s perspective on the difference between ethics, religion and philosophy on the one hand and science on the other was in tune with Wittgenstein’s view and similar was also their aversion towards scientism; furthermore, Piccoli had read many of the authors for which Wittgenstein showed an interest in 1930 – 1931 – Freud, Spengler, Frazer, Augustine, and also James. (shrink)

This article develops a philosophical hermeneusis of the “Valladolid Debate” centered on the notion of “universality”, highlighting the universalist elements present both in the foundation of a praxis of colonial domination developed by Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda and in the recognition of the cultural diversity held by Bartolomé de las Casas. First, the historical-ideological context of the conquest is presented. Subsequently the article analyzes de Sepulveda’s arguments about barbarism, cultural superiority and the right of domination, which established a “logic of (...) cultural domination”. In this context, de Sepúlveda intended to establish a fracture between “civilized” and “barbaric” cultures, in which the human essence revealed itself deficiently. Finally, the contribution considers the objections to the “colonial fracture” presented by de las Casas, who composes an alternative position resignifying the concept of “universality” that inhabited de Sepúlveda’s differentialist arguments. (shrink)

G. W. Leibniz on Making Knowledge Sensible · G. W. Leibniz’s contribution to logic and a propositional theory of truth, based on the idea that concepts are composed of definitional notes, has been considered the core of his philosophical system and metaphysics. However, Leibniz thought that there are other forms of knowledge that are perceptual and, therefore, non-propositional and non-conceptual. This essay explores forms of non-conceptual knowledge and argues that they depend on the imagination. Despite the distinction between conceptual and (...) non-conceptual forms of knowledge, there are two senses in which conceptual knowledge depends on non-conceptual knowledge : there is a constitutive sense in which non-conceptual knowledge has a constitutive function because it allows one to conceive of beings in concreto, and thus anchors human knowledge to reality ; there is a second sense in which non-conceptual knowledge has the function of making imaginable intellectual concepts that could not be other- wise represented by the human mind. The essay shows that these functions are interrelated. (shrink)

Campbell, Ulrich, and Grady (2016) should be commended for attempting to contribute to the discussion of what many believe is currently a messy concept. They propose that a broader definition of mo...

Here, I reply to three commentaries on my recent book, Promoting Justice Across Borders: The Ethics of Reform Intervention. The main topics include the scope of the category “reform intervention,” to what extent it is appropriate to evaluate economic activity using moral criteria, the meaning of collective self-determination and its relationship to democracy, and the limits of toleration as a moral ideal.

In late February and early March 2020, Italy became the European epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite increasingly stringent containment measures enforced by the government, the health system faced an enormous pressure, and extraordinary efforts were made in order to increase overall hospital beds’ availability and especially ICU capacity. Nevertheless, the hardest-hit hospitals in Northern Italy experienced a shortage of ICU beds and resources that led to hard allocating choices. At the beginning of March 2020, the Italian Society of Anesthesia, (...) Analgesia, Resuscitation, and Intensive Care issued recommendations aimed at supporting physicians in prioritizing patients when the number of critically ill patients overwhelm the capacity of ICUs. One motivating concern for the SIAARTI guidance was that, if no balanced and consistent allocation procedures were applied to prioritize patients, there would be a concrete risk for unfair choices, and that the prevalent “first come, first served” principle would lead to many avoidable deaths. Among the drivers of decision for admission to ICUs, age, comorbidities, and preexisting functional status were included. The recommendations were criticized as ageist and potentially discriminatory against elderly patients. Looking forward to the next steps, the Italian experience can be relevant to other parts of the world that are yet to see a significant surge of COVID-19: the need for transparent triage criteria and commonly shared values give the Italian recommendations even greater legitimacy. (shrink)

Dispelling the Darkness: A Jesuit’s Quest for the Soul of Tibet, by Donal S. Lopez Jr. and Thupten Jinpa. Harvard University Press, 2017. 320 pp. Hb and e-book. £23.95. ISBN- 13: 9780674659704.

This study examines personal and emotional metaphors of prospective economics teachers about the roles they themselves as teachers and their pupils would play by analysing their drawings and responses to open questions. This is a longitudinal study that analyses the evolution of future instructors using two periods: before and after their teaching practicum. Metaphors are categorised into four classes: behaviourist/transmissive, cognitivist/constructivist, situative/socio-historical, and self-referential. The categories for emotions are primary or social and positive, negative, or neutral. The results show that (...) the highest percentage of metaphors for the teacher’s role in both questionnaires were cognitivist/constructivist. Comparison of the findings before and after the teaching practicum revealed no changes in most of the participants’ metaphors and associated models. The analysis also reveals that among those who change, the tendency is to evolve towards more pupil-centred metaphors and associated models. The most common pupil metaphors are behaviourist and cognitivist, increasing after the practicum. Finally, most of the emotions expressed are positive and social, also increasing after the practicum. (shrink)

What is responsibility? -- Being responsible -- Being responsible in your community -- Glossary -- Find out more -- Index -- About the author.

The rise of the idea of the Anthropocene is promoting multiple reflections on its meaning. As we consider entering this new geological epoch, we realize the pervasiveness of humankind’s deconstruction and reconstruction of the Earth, in both geophysical and discursive terms. As the body of the Earth is marked and reshaped, so is its idea. From a hostile territory to be subjugated and exploited through sovereign commands, the Earth is now reframed as a vulnerable domain in need of protection. The (...) mode of sovereignty, which has accompanied human and legal history and practice during modernity and its project of mastery, is no longer useful. Humanity’s control of the Earth is being reimagined and reconfigured along biopolitical coordinates of thought and action. Biopolitics shifts the focus of power, changes its modalities of interventions, and rearticulates its legitimacy on the idea of taking responsibility for the Earth, for nature. A biopolitical re-orientation of law captures the fundamental aim of caring for nature, of fostering its vital possibilities and of enhancing its productive potential. Yet, biopolitics engulfs nature in its entirety under its framework of control, where protection and subjugation, vulnerability and productivity, life and death are constantly entangled in a reciprocal and inevitable relation of indistinguishability. Sovereignty becomes thus a key modality of biopolitical intervention, when nature is recalcitrant, wild, spontaneous, unpredictable, violent, dangerous. Biopolitics, thus, remains caught in an undecidable dilemma, where in order to protect the Earth, it must subjugate it; to save it, it must condemn it. In this respect, biopolitics remains utterly modern, or as argued by Roberto Esposito, modernity has always been biopolitical, insofar as modernity has emerged as a framework for the protection of life against life’s own excesses. But how can we escape the biopolitical reframing and enframing of the Earth and its total subsumption under its matrix of control? How can we rethink the encounter between law and nature without remaining entangled in the aporetic dilemma of biopolitics? An aesthetics of wonder may offer a way. (shrink)

Dentro del spinozismo francés, la lectura que ofrece Étienne Balibar se destaca por su matiz fuertemente político y su contribución a una filosofía de la política crítica del pensamiento filosófico político. Este artículo aborda los textos que Balibar destina a la obra de Baruch Spinoza con el objetivo de vislumbrar el modo en que el filósofo neerlandés abona a una teoría de la política sobre las bases de una ontología transindividual, de la democratización, del conatus emancipador, de la ambivalencia propia (...) de las masas y las formas de relación con el Estado. (shrink)

In this paper, part of the ideas developed in Lewowicz (2000) will be reconsidered in the light of Pandora's Hope (1999a) - one of the latest publications of Bruno Latour. We will ponder the significance of these ideas and some of the incidental advances or retreats of the views of this author in the last 20 years. Although we still believe that, from the ontological point of view, Latour's philosophy is materialistic - then eliminativist - and not ontological relativist (contrary (...) to the opinion of his colleague philosophers), some of the symmetries developed in that text show outstanding ontological-epistemological and even methodological deficiencies which we try to show here; especially the symmetry between 'human and nonhuman actors' (Latour 1999a) and his very singular (but not without a fair amount of antecedents) concept of history of the things whose neologism is that of pragmatogony. Andrew Pickering (The mangle of practice, 1999a) proposed and developed the concept of temporary emergency. In view of this concept, he succeeds in criticising Latour's exact symmetries making use primarily of the concept of intentionality to account for the asymmetry (by no means radical, according to the latter) between 'the human and nonhuman collective'. In this paper we will try to reinforce (and inevitably to question) the notion of temporal emergency by giving it a less local aspect than the one given by this author. We will not only hold the asymmetry of certain dichotomies - presumably avoided by and avoidable according to Latour - but we will also claim the historical impossibility of such an avoidance: the concept of historialised emergency and not just temporalised, precludes this. It is concluded, firstly, that only an eliminativist materialism (within the range of materialisms) is able to avoid and even 'overcome' such pairs like nature/society and some of its derivatives like subject/object and individual/collective. Secondly, the decisive character of some dichotomies will be defended and lastly it will be attempted to account for the almost only ontological possibility of constructivism: the eliminativist materialism. (shrink)

Through the reconstruction of Leibniz's theory of the degrees of knowledge, this e-book investigates and explores the intrinsic relationship of imagination with space and time. The inquiry into this relationship defines the logic of imagination that characterizes both human and non-human animals, albeit differently, making them two different species of imaginative animals. -/- Lucia Oliveri explains how the emergence of language in human animals goes hand in hand with the emergence of thought and a different form of rationality constituted (...) by logical inferences based on identity and contradiction, principles that are out of reach of the imagination. The e-book concludes that the presence of innate principles in human animals transforms the way in which they sense-perceive the world, thereby constantly increasing the distinction between human and non-human animals. -/- Keywords: human and non-human animals, Leibniz and Locke on ideas, Leibniz on bodies, Leibniz on conceivability, Leibniz on degrees of knowledge, Leibniz on degrees of perception, Leibniz on innate ideas, Leibniz on modality, Leibniz on similarity and congruence, Leibniz on space and time, Leibniz’s philosophy of language, theory of types. (shrink)

A recent Carnegie Report on Nursing Education – Educating Nurses: A Call for Radical Transformation challenges the nursing profession to embrace an education model that integrates knowledge, skilled know how and ethical comportment. Placing ethics in such a prominent position in nursing education is a radical transformation. Teaching ethics must be intentional and it is integral to the development of individual nurses and the profession as a whole. The development of moral imagination has a prominent place in this new education (...) model. The moral imagination is the ability to ponder and wonder about the inherent rightness or wrongness of decisions, choices and behaviors. This paper will review some key issues relevant to teaching ethics and then explore what nurturing the moral imagination could do for nurses as they learn to apply abstract ethics concepts to their clinical practice. (shrink)

The aim of the study was to explore the experiences of night nurses. An interpretative phenomenological study was undertaken, and 35 nurses working in Italian medical, surgical and intensive care units were purposely recruited. Data were gathered in 2010 by semi‐structured interviews, collecting nurses' narratives, memorable cases and metaphors, aimed at summarising the essence of work as a nurse during the night. The experience of night nursing is based on four interconnected themes: (i) working in a state of alert, (ii) (...) growing by expanding autonomy and responsibility, (iii) assuring sensitive surveillance and (iv) experiencing deep intimacy. Memorable episodes were polarised along (i) expected/unexpected events; (ii) positive/negative epilogues; and (iii) life/death issues. Many of the emergent metaphors described working during the night as being in the middle of a space where an apparent calm scene takes place, but unpredictable factors may suddenly change the order of events and the outcomes, creating chaos. Working during the night alerts nurses, who increase autonomy, expanding their role and assuming more responsibility with respect to that assumed during daily shifts. The nurses' clinical reasoning is based on data they carefully listen to, and on the meaning that nurses give time by time to different noises and silence. While in the past a sense of companionships was reported, a loneliness or a ‘neutral’ experience concerning the relationships with colleagues seems to prevail during night nursing. Working night shifts is a complex task, and specific training must be assured to students/novices. (shrink)

Este artículo analiza la novela Jardín, de la escritora cubana Dulce María Loynaz, deteniéndose en las estrategias que despliega para subvertir distintos modelos de feminidad. La novela sostiene un diálogo productivo con distintas corrientes estéticas, cuyas formas de expresión asume y a la vez critica por las limitaciones que le imponen al desarrollo de la subjetividad femenina. A través del recorrido que realiza en Jardín por distintas propuestas estéticas e ideológicas que han contribuido a la configuración del sujeto moderno, Loynaz (...) despliega una crítica a las formas en que estas construyen el sujeto femenino y su posición en el orden de género sexual. Este recorrido se realiza desde dentro de estas estéticas, desde su apropiación productiva en la textualidad de la novela, la que transita por el lenguaje del romanticismo, del simbolismo, del modernismo y de las vanguardias. En Jardín se muestra cómo estos movimientos abren, pero también cierran, posibilidades de expresión y desarrollo para las mujeres. (shrink)

The U.S. relations to Democratic People’s Republic of Korea are since the end of the Cold War revolving around achieving a state of nuclear free Korean peninsula. As non-proliferation is a long term of American foreign policy, relations to North Korea could be categorized primarily under this umbrella. However, the issue of North Korean political system also plays role as it belongs to the other important, more normative category of U.S. foreign policy which is the protection of human rights and (...) spreading of democracy and liberal values. In addition, the North Korean issue influences U.S. relations and interests in broader region of Northeast Asia, its bilateral alliances with South Korea and Japan as well as sensitive and complex relations to People’s Republic of China. As the current administration of president Donald J. Trump published its National security strategy and was fully occupied with the situation on Korean peninsula in its first year, the aim of the paper is to analyse the changes in evolution of U.S. North Korean policy under last three administrations, look at the different strategies adopted in order to achieve the same aim, the denuclearization. The paper does not provide a thorough analysis, neither looks at all documents adopted and presented in the U.S. or within the U.N. It more focuses on the general principles of particular strategies, most significant events in mutual relations as recorded by involved governmental officials and also weaknesses of these strategies as none has achieved desirable result. In conclusion, several options for current administration are drawn, however all of them require significant compromises and could be accompanied with series of setbacks dangerous for regional stability and U.S. position in the region. (shrink)