Prenatal screening pathways, as nowadays offered in most Western countries consist of similar tests. First, a risk‐assessment test for major aneuploides is offered to pregnant women. In case of an increased risk, invasive diagnostic tests, entailing a miscarriage risk, are offered. For decades, only conventional karyotyping was used for final diagnosis. Moreover, several foetal ultrasound scans are offered to detect major congenital anomalies, but the same scans also provide relevant information for optimal support of the pregnancy and the delivery.Recent developments (...) in prenatal screening include the application of microarrays that allow for identifying a much broader range of abnomalities than karyotyping, and non‐invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) that enables reducing the number of invasive tests for aneuploidies considerably. In the future, broad NIPT may become possible and affordable.This article will briefly address the ethical issues raised by these technological developments. First, a safe NIPT may lead to routinisation and as such challenge the central issue of informed consent and the aim of prenatal screening: to offer opportunity for autonomous reproductive choice. Widening the scope of prenatal screening also raises the question to what extent ‘reproductive autonomy’ is meant to expand. Finally, if the same test is used for two different aims, namely detection of foetal anomalies and pregnancy‐related problems, non‐directive counselling can no longer be taken as a standard. Our broad outline of the ethical issues is meant as an introduction into the more detailed ethical discussions about prenatal screening in the other articles of this special issue. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é, primeiro, apresentar e considerar as críticas de Paley com mais detalhes e, em seguida, discutir algumas das aplicações significativas da fenomenologia que muitas vezes foram negligenciadas pelos pesquisadores qualitativos. Como foi amplamente demonstrado ao longo dos anos, a fenomenologia pode não apenas fazer a diferença no manuseio, análise e interpretação dos dados disponíveis, mas também em como os dados são obtidos em primeiro lugar, por exemplo, através de técnicas especiais de entrevista. Consideraremos algumas figuras centrais (...) da psicologia fenomenológica clássica e da psiquiatria fenomenológica e apresentaremos alguns dos desenvolvimentos mais recentes na ciência cognitiva. Em seguida, discutiremos três casos concretos que demonstram como a fenomenologia foi aplicada no trabalho clínico com pacientes com esquizofrenia, paralisia cerebral e negligência hemispatial. (shrink)

Background: Older, frail patients with multimorbidity are at an especially high risk for disease severity and death from COVID-19. The social restrictions proved challenging for the residents, their relatives, and the care staff. While these restrictions clearly impacted daily life in Norwegian nursing homes, knowledge about how the pandemic influenced nursing practice is sparse. Aim: The aim of the study was to illuminate ethical difficult situations experienced by Norwegian nurses working in nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Research design and (...) participants: The research design involved semistructured individual interviews conducted with 15 nurses working in 8 nursing homes in 3 health regions in Norway, within both urban and rural areas. Ethical considerations: Oral and written information about the study was provided before the participants gave their written consent. The transcribed interviews were de-identified. The study was approved by the Norwegian Centre for Research Data. Findings: Four ethical difficult situations were identified: (a) turning the nursing home into a prison; (b) using medication to maintain peace and order; (c) being left alone with the responsibility; and (d) s. impact on decision-making. Conclusions: The nurses’ ethical challenges were intertwined with external factors, such as national and local guidelines, and the nurses’ own internalized factors, which were connected to their subjective professionality. This duality inflicted emotional distress and gave nurses few opportunities to perform nursing in a professionally sound and safe manner. (shrink)

Artykuł przedstawia proces twórczy Wiesława Myśliwskiego. Skupia się szczególnie na dwóch aspektach pracy pisarza. Pierwszy z nich Myśliwski określa terminem „bezradność owocująca”, to stan, który bezpośrednio poprzedza pisanie. Drugi określiłam jako „teorię pierwszego zdania”, a pojęcie to utworzyłam na bazie wypowiedzi pisarza. Artykuł zawiera analizę pierwszych zdań powieści Wiesława Myśliwskiego. Sygnalizuję możliwość zestawienia „bezradności owocującej” z innymi, choć podobnymi, koncepcjami procesu twórczego m.in. Emila Ciorana czy Sandora Maraiego.

Ancient Slavic archaic culture proved to be much more complex and incomprehensible than domestic researchers had imagined at the end of the 20th century. Modern scientists have discovered new complex aspects of ancient pagan culture that require considerable attention from researchers in various scientific fields. Of particular interest in this regard are the cults of ancient Slavic pagan gods-warriors, who are worshiped both among the people and among warrior-warriors.

Originally published in 1939, this volume contains the text of an inaugural lecture delivered by M. M. Postan on his accession to the Professorship of Economic History at the University of Cambridge. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in economic history or the history of the study of humanities.

The relatively plentiful sources for the year 346 pose several questions which have never been satisfactorily answered. Why did Philip insist on an alliance with Athens as a precondition of the peace? Did Demosthenes simply invent the promises of Philip which he claims Aeschines reported to the Athenian assembly in Skirophorion? Why were the Athenians frightened when Philip got control of Thermopylae? They had long expected him to settle the Sacred War, and such action surely required occupation of the pass. (...) The correct answer to these questions indicates that Philip had two alternative plans in 346. ‘Plan A’ was with the aid of the Athenians to turn on Thebes. By this move, he would reduce the power of the second greatest city in Greece and thus eliminate the possibility of a combination of Athens and Thebes, which might be sufficiently powerful to block his ambitions. (shrink)

The inclusion of Eastern Slavs in the sphere of religious and cultural influences of Byzantium was a tremendous event both in national and in world history. Since then, the main center of the culture of Kievan Rus, incorporating a complex of ideas and functions of the spiritual, public and private life of ancient Russian society, became the Eastern Christian temple in its local version.

It is well known that the medieval philosophical thought of the Islamic world was characterized by a significant level of understanding of the phenomenon of religion. This was due not only to the religious coloration of the tradition itself or the purely religious outlook, but also to the importance of the role that religion played and continues to play in Muslim societies. One of the manifestations of this phenomenon is the long-term development of historical, doxographically-apologetic and philosophical views on the (...) phenomenon of religion, its content, functions and role. Religion acted as the starting point of a whole system of social, cultural, economic and political ties, and therefore one of the pressing problems of medieval Islamic religious thought was the problem of categories and definitions related to variable ideas. about religion in general. (shrink)