Rationale, aims and objectives Given the increasing prevalence of cataract and demand for cataract extraction surgery, patients must often wait to undergo this procedure. We validated a previously developed priority scoring system in terms of clinical variables, pre-intervention health status, appropriateness of surgery and gain in visual acuity (VA) and health-related quality of life (HRQoL).Methods Explicit prioritization criteria for cataract extraction created by a variation of the Research and Development (RAND) and University of California Los Angeles appropriateness methodology were retrospectively (...) applied to a prospective cohort of 5257 patients on waiting lists to undergo cataract by phacoemulsification at 17 hospitals in Spain. Demographic data, clinical data and data related to surgical technique were collected by trained ophthalmologists. Patients were evaluated by their ophthalmologist before the intervention and 6 weeks afterward. They also completed, by mail, the Visual Function Index (VF-14) before the intervention and 3 months afterward.Results High-priority patients experienced greater improvement in VA and HRQoL than those classified as intermediate or low-priority (P < 0.0001), even after adjusting by VA and the VF-14 score at baseline. The time to intervention was the same for high-priority patients as it was for intermediate and low-priority patients.Conclusions The priority score we developed identified patients most likely to experience the greatest improvements from cataract extraction. Use of this tool could provide a fairer and more rational way to prioritize patients for cataract extraction. (shrink)

What is considered normal determines clinical practice in medicine and has implications at an individual level, doctor-patient relationship and health care policies. With the increase in medical information and technical abilities it is urgent to have a clear concept of normality in medicine so that crucial discussions can be held with unequivocal terms.The different meanings for normality were analyzed throughout the literature and grouped according to their relevance in the academic community in models, namely the Biostatistical Theory (BST), Health, Ideal, (...) Process and Biological advantage. The BST is the most established naturalistic approach, however normal variability can arguably constitute a problem. Health is similar and raises the question of setting the boundaries of pathology. Normality as an Ideal is an useful tool but is naturally unrealistic. As a Process it is comprehensible but is hard to frame for practical purposes. If considered as a Biological Advantage, seems intuitive but abnormality should tend to disappear.After, three examples were presented to discuss these models. They were Anemia, Psychiatric diseases and Psychopathy. In the case of Anemia the BST was applied and the arbitrary boundaries but with social impact were exposed. Psychiatric diseases was discussed under the process of self-organization and non-suffering ideal. With Psychopathy the boundaries of biological advantage are questioned.This review appeals to the importance of redesigning of the concept of normality in medicine according to current times and stresses the importance of integrating concepts such as variability and autonomy. (shrink)

This paper critically investigates the implementation of the UN guiding principles on business and human rights (UNGPs) into the corporate setting through the concept of ‘translation’. In the decade since the creation of the UNGPs, little academic research has focussed specifically on the corporate implementation of human rights. Drawing on qualitative case studies of two multinational corporations—an oil and gas company and a bank—this paper unpacks how human rights are translated into the corporate context. In doing so, the paper focuses (...) on the “resonance dilemma” translators encounter, the strategies used to make human rights understandable and palatable, and the difficulties that emerge from this process. We contend that the process of making human rights understandable and manageable can change their form and content, which may act as an obstacle to human rights realisation and corporate accountability for human rights. (shrink)

En ese artículo de naturaleza bibliográfica explicamos porque el diálogo intercientífico permite que se transcienda la homogeneidad de una epistemología involucrada en sí misma, expandiéndose para la transdisciplinariedad cultural y epistemológica. Analizamos dos nuevos modelos de paradigma alternativo, a saber: el vivir bien y el desarrollo endógeno sustentable. Consideramos que esas concepciones filosóficas tienen el desafío de desarrollar nuevas posibilidades epistemológicas y metodológicas que permitan el cambio de la realidad social e histórica. Palabras clave: Diálogo Intercientífico. Epistemología Transdisciplinar. Desarrollo Endógeno (...) Sustentable. Vivir Bien. (shrink)

Psychonarratology is an approach to the empirical study of literary response and the processing of narrative. It draws on the empirical methodology of cognitive psychology and discourse processing as well as the theoretical insights and conceptual analysis of literary studies, particularly narratology. The present work provides a conceptual and empirical basis for this interdisciplinary approach that is accessible to researchers from either disciplinary background. An integrative review is presented of the classic problems in narratology: the status of the narrator, events (...) and plot, characters and characterization, speech and thought, and focalization. For each area, Bortolussi and Dixon critique the state of the art in narratology and literary studies, discuss relevant work in cognitive psychology, and provide a new analytical framework based on the insight that readers treat the narrator as a conversational participant. Empirical evidence is presented on each problem, much of it previously unpublished. (shrink)

This article reconsiders Sartre's seminal 1945 talk, “Existentialism is a Humanism,” and the stakes of the humanism debate in France by looking at the immediate political context that has been overlooked in previous discussions of the text. It analyses the political discussion of the term “humanism” during the French national elections of 1945 and the rumbling debate over Sartre's philosophy that culminated in his presentation to the Club Maintenant, just one week after France went to the polls. A consideration of (...) this context helps explain both the rise, and later the decline, of existentialism in France, when, in the changing political climate, humanism lost its centrality, setting the stage for new antihumanist criticisms of Sartre's work. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:One Interpreter's Journey of Interpreting for Pregnancy LossMarisa Rueda WillInterpreters have to know everything." This is what I thought as I watched and shadowed a seasoned interpreter at a world-renowned medical center, during my J-term internship. The fact that I had gotten this opportunity was still hard to believe. There I was, shadowing medical interpreters at one of the best hospitals in the world during my senior year of (...) college after abruptly dropping my secondary education minor to pursue a career in medical interpreting. I felt fortunate for the opportunity and seized the chance to learn from the best of the best.When that same institution hired me after I graduated college in 2006, my training consisted of shadowing other interpreters and having them shadow me. There was no strict process, just one-on-one on-the-job training. The training I received was the best it could be at the time, but not even close to what it takes for an interpreter to become confident and prepared to interpret for most appointments.Growing up I hadn't been interested in the medical profession. When I started working as an interpreter, I soon learned that in addition to my A and B languages, I also needed to learn a C language—the language of medicine. Just as I learned Spanish, I had to learn that a CAT scan was a type of imaging study, and a creatinine level was a measure of kidney function. I was fascinated by the language of medicine. The acronyms, medications, diseases, body parts, hormones, markers, genes, everything.As fascinating as medicine was, it wasn't the reason I considered medical interpreting my calling. As soon as I started working as a volunteer healthcare interpreter at a local free clinic, I knew it was the way I wanted to make a difference in the world. The Spanish speakers I was helping were low-income, underprivileged people with serious medical conditions and a host of other socioeconomic problems. These were people who needed help. These were people who needed to be heard. These were people who needed to be seen. As an interpreter, I would be able to give them a voice. Fast forward 18 years and I am still making a difference in the lives of patients with Limited English Proficient (LEP) by giving them the gift of communicative autonomy, or the right to be in control of and responsible for their own communication.Communicative autonomy is one of the founding principles of the medical interpreting profession. It differentiates the professionals from ad-hoc interpreters and bilingual family and friends. This is because upholding communicative autonomy means that regardless of my personal beliefs, I must remain impartial in all situations. I must interpret what is said and allow all parties involved [End Page 156] to guide the conversation as they see fit. Ideally, I only intervene to mediate for cultural or linguistic reasons when needed.Some of the most ethically conflicting cases I have had to interpret have centered around pregnancy loss and abortion. When I started interpreting, I was a young single woman with a relatively liberal view on reproductive rights. However, one stillbirth and three healthy pregnancies later, my personal beliefs on the subject have become more complicated. Each time I interpret for a loss or induced abortion, I must dig deep and ask myself if I can remain impartial. I can still remember the first time I faced this dilemma.One evening, I was called to interpret for a labor and delivery case. When I arrived, I was informed that it was an induction of an 18-week-gestation fetus that had tested positive for Down syndrome on genetic testing. At the time, I didn't have strong beliefs about abortion. I had never been pregnant and really wasn't sure where I stood on the spectrum of a woman's body, a woman's choice, and abortion is murder. However, there I was, smack dab in the middle of an elective abortion on a weeknight.The bereavement nurse was seasoned and experienced. If it hadn't been for her guidance and poise, the ordeal would have been... (shrink)

Este trabajo analiza la eugenesia en Argentina desde un enfoque de larga duración, que, como tal, se mantuvo en el tiempo con cierta indiferencia a cambios contextuales profundos. Así, respecto a la historia de la ciencia (dentro de cuyo ámbito se incluye a la historia de la eugenesia) puede identificarse esa larga duración como parte de un fenómeno cultural que subsistiera, más o menos incólume, ante eventos habidos en el entorno que, desde otra perspectiva, hubieran implicado un trastocamiento inevitable de (...) la tesis propuesta. Esa fortaleza (o resistencia) paradigmática es la que, leída en términos biopolíticos, le ha otorgado a la tardo eugenesia cierta inmunidad y que, a la vez, le ha permitido fabricar sus propios anticuerpos luego de conocidos los horrores del nazismo. (shrink)

O texto propõe um rápido percurso pela historiografia argentina para se deter mais especificamente no lugar ocupado pelo peronismo na segunda metade do século XX.

En este artículo se presenta el guión de una conferencia que Roberto Lehmann-Nitsche, pocos años después de radicarse en la Argentina, desarrolló en 1901 acerca del folklore mapuche. La intervención se realizó a solicitud de la Deutschen Frauen Verein, una asociación de mujeres alemanas con sede en la ciudad de Buenos Aires, y abordó aspectos teóricos sobre esta disciplina, entonces en expansión, desde la perspectiva germana. Además, realizó una catalogación de los materiales empíricos documentados por este antropólogo durante los primeros (...) años de su residencia en el país. El texto original, hasta el momento inédito, se entrega en su versión en alemán y en traducción al español. En la presentación se proporciona un análisis que permite reconocer cómo en esta intervención se integran apreciaciones que Lehmann-Nitsche también sostuvo en posteriores publicaciones científicas y de divulgación por él realizadas. Como se sabe, su producción en el campo del folklore comprendió dos vertientes: por un lado, el folklore criollo y por otro, el devenido de arte verbal y tradiciones de los pueblos indígenas preexistentes, en especial textos correspondientes a géneros narrativos y adivinanzas en las lenguas propias y en castellano. En relación con este último aspecto, se retoman aportes de autores filiados en la tradición germana a fin de indicar afinidades y vínculos, con algunos americanistas que eran sus contemporáneos. (shrink)

El artículo intenta realizar una síntesis de la cuestión de la libertad y los valores, su sentido ético y su anclaje onto-antropológico con el fin de señalar el contexto amplio en que éstos se sitúan en el pensamiento de Francisco Leocata. Uno de los objetivos principales de la obra de Leocata ha sido fortalecer el concepto de persona, su racionalidad y sus raíces metafísicas en respuesta a corrientes filosóficas contemporáneas que ponen en peligro la consistencia y el destino de la (...) existencia humana. (shrink)

Although alterations in Ras signalling are found in about 30% of human cancers, the transforming activity of oncogenic Ras is not fully understood. In a recent paper, a putative Ras1 effector in S. pombe, named Scd1, was reported to localize to mitotic apindies. Scd1 physically associates with Moe1, a factor that may contribute to the inherent inatability of microtubules (MTs) and appears to be needed for proper apindle function. Altered MT dynamics within the spindle are likely to affect spindle assembly (...) and chromosome capture, processes that need to be delicately controlled if cells are to guard against genome instability adn transformation. BloEssays 23: 307‐310,2001.©2001 John Willey & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

In the middle decades of the twentieth century phenomenology grew from a local philosophy in a few German towns into a movement that spanned Europe. In Converts to the Real, Edward Baring uncovers an unexpected force behind this prodigious growth: Catholicism. Participating in a tightly-knit transnational community, Catholics helped shuttle ideas between national traditions that were otherwise inward-looking and parochial. In the first half of the twentieth century, they wrote many of the first articles and books introducing phenomenological ideas to (...) new contexts. They even organized the rescue of Edmund Husserl's manuscripts out of Nazi Germany in 1938. But the Catholic fascination with phenomenology was intermixed with a profound anxiety. Catholics worried that phenomenological ideas might prove dangerous to the faith, a possibility exemplified by the intellectual trajectory of Martin Heidegger, whose movement away from the Church was facilitated by his reading of Husserl. Converts to the Real uncovers a surprising genealogy for post-war European thought, with important implications for our understanding of the process of secularization and for the set of schools and ideas we now call "continental philosophy."--. (shrink)

This is the first study to focus on the idea of virtue and its place in political thought in eighteenth-century France. Virtue could be used to impart moral authority to arguments about political power. The development of this strategic idea is traced through the works of key Enlightenment thinkers. There is also consideration of the ways in which numerous popular writers of the day, including clerics, eulogists, journalists, novelists and lawyers, employed the idea of virtue in polemical discussions in their (...) writings. (shrink)

Este título da coleção "Conexões Musicais", de autoria da musicóloga e professora Marisa Fonterrada, relaciona aspectos musicais do meio ambiente, abordando os seguintes assuntos, entre outros: som e silêncio, sons do corpo, sons dos seres e fenômenos, características dos sons, sons de ontem e de agora, sons imaginados e criação e brincadeiras com os sons. Esta coleção, coordenada pela musicóloga Yara Caznok, visa apresentar ao leitor as várias conexões da música com outras expressões artísticas ou com disciplinas das ciências (...) humanas ou exatas. (shrink)

Following a discourse analysis approach this study examines triadic encounters of nine medical consultations carried out in an outpatient cancer clinic in Santiago, Chile involving an oncologist, a patient and a patient’s companion. Consultations are fully transcribed and analysed to understand the participatory roles patients’ companions play in the medical exchanges. In addition, the type of linguistic functions associated with each role and the advantages or downsides of companions’ involvement in the encounters are also investigated. The analysis reveals seven prominent (...) roles that companions may engage in during the visits. These are studied in detail. The results show that although companions may not always provide information that is consistent with the patients’ views, they can be of great help. Relieving the patients of many daunting tasks, monitoring their well-being, establishing a partnership and bringing vital information to the clinic are instances where the controlling power that some may exercise in the medical encounter can be outweighed. (shrink)

In the early 1840s, Joseph Faber presented his invention “The Wonderful Talking Machine,” later known as Euphonia, which captivated and unsettled audiences alike. While its ability to imitate human speech in various languages represented a remarkable mechanical feat, its “uncanny” voice elicited unease. The paper examines the dynamic between Faber and his invention, drawing parallels with Mary Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein and his “creature.” We focus on the status of artificial creation and the unsettling nature of imitation, emphasizing the general ambivalence (...) towards automata in the 19th century. By exploring the encounter between creator and creation, we examine the complexity of their relation and the horror that emanates from the blurring of the boundaries between man and machine when an effect of “likeness in difference” takes place. (shrink)

En este trabajo, presentamos las líneas claves de la posición sostenida por Hilary Putman y los principales contrastes que el autor señala respecto de la visión de Jürgen Habermas, en el marco de un caluroso debate acerca de la relación entre los valores y las normas. Entre los temas abordados, destacan la posibilidad (o no) de separar valores y normas, cual sea el contenido universal de los enunciados éticos, en qué se funda la obligatoriedad de las normas y qué papel (...) desempeña la discusión en la situación ideal de habla, base de la ética del discurso habermasiana. Según entendemos, el debate pone de manifiesto tanto las debilidades parciales de ambas posiciones, cuanto las fecundas y latentes posibilidades de complementariedad. (shrink)

In this study, we examine the accounts of 30 white middle- and upper-class female heroin/methadone users. Using a resistance framework, we note that these women recall their initial heroin use in ways that suggest rejection of restrictive gender and class expectations. Using a dynamic view of resistance, we begin to understand how these women attempt to resist the dominant discourse through their heroin use and to reinterpret their experiences with heroin.

The article intends to show that MacIntyre’s notion of friendship (which, according to him, would be a reappropriation of Aristotle’s notion of philia), while ignoring the political aspect explicitly emphasized by Aristotle, reduces the notion of friendship to its social or civic aspect, thereby weakening the political nature of man.

Citizen science projects have started to utilize Machine Learning to sort through large datasets generated in fields like astronomy, ecology and biodiversity, biology, and neuroimaging. Human–machine systems have been created to take advantage of the complementary strengths of humans and machines and have been optimized for efficiency and speed. We conducted qualitative content analysis on meta-summaries of documents reporting the results of 12 citizen science projects that used machine learning to optimize classification tasks. We examined the distribution of tasks between (...) citizen scientists, experts, and algorithms, and how epistemic agency was enacted in terms of whose knowledge shapes the distribution of tasks, who decides what knowledge is relevant to the classification, and who validates it. In our descriptive results, we found that experts, who include professional scientists and algorithm developers, are involved in every aspect of a project, from annotating or labelling data to giving data to algorithms to train them to make decisions from predictions. Experts also test and validate models to improve their accuracy by scoring their outputs when algorithms fail to make correct decisions. Experts are mostly the humans involved in a loop, but when algorithms encounter problems, citizens are also involved at several stages. In this paper, we present three main examples of citizens-in-the-loop: when algorithms provide incorrect suggestions; when algorithms fail to know how to perform classification; and when algorithms pose queries. We consider the implications of the emphasis on optimization on the ideal of science and the role of citizen scientists from a perspective informed by Science and Technology Studies and Information Systems. Based on our findings, we conclude that ML in CS classification projects, far from being deterministic in its nature and effects, may be open to question. There is no guarantee that these technologies can replace citizen scientists, nor any guarantee that they can provide citizens with opportunities for more interesting tasks. (shrink)

O estudo aqui apresentado propõe uma interpretação do amor de si como o pathos primordial, da forma como Rousseau o pressentiu.

RESUMO:A hipótese apresentada neste texto é a de que a piedade, que Rousseau também denomina “segundo princípio”, encontrado por ele “ao meditar nas primeiras e mais simples operações da alma humana”, não é um princípio antagônico ao amor de si. Pretende-se mostrar como o dualismo radical dos princípios se renderia diante da evidência de uma unidade representada por um duplo movimento: o de fixar-se ou aderir-se em si e o de expansão, que seria a expressão da piedade. Desse ponto de (...) vista, o segundo princípio teria um status complementar do amor de si e não opositivo a ele, como algumas interpretações propõem. Entretanto, é uma discussão complexa, uma vez que nela estão implicadas as controvérsias entre os intérpretes de Rousseau em relação à possível divergência da noção de piedade, no Segundo Discurso, no Emílio e no Ensaio sobre a Origem das Línguas, além das discussões em torno da datação do Ensaio. ABSTRACT:The hypothesis presented in this article is that pitié, or the “second principle”, which Rousseau claims to have found by “contemplating the first and simplest operations of the human soul”, is not antagonistic to the first principle. I intend to show how the radical dualism of the principles can yield before the evidence of a unity represented by a double movement: rentrer sur soi and self-expansion. From this point of view, the “second principle” has a complementary status to love of self, and not an opposing one as some interpretations propose. However, this is a complex discussion involving controversies among the interpreters of Rousseau, a discussion which concerns the possible divergence of the concept of compassion in the Discourse on Inequality, Émile, and the Essay on the Origin of Languages, and also involves questions about the date of the writing of the latter work. (shrink)

Odor naming is enhanced in communities where communication about odors is a central part of daily life (e.g., wine experts, flavorists, and some hunter‐gatherer groups). In this study, we investigated how expert knowledge and daily experience affect the ability to name odors in a group of experts that has not previously been investigated in this context—Iranian herbalists; also called attars—as well as cooks and laypeople. We assessed naming accuracy and consistency for 16 herb and spice odors, collected judgments of odor (...) perception, and evaluated participants' odor meta‐awareness. Participants' responses were overall more consistent and accurate for more frequent and familiar odors. Moreover, attars were more accurate than both cooks and laypeople at naming odors, although cooks did not perform significantly better than laypeople. Attars' perceptual ratings of odors and their overall odor meta‐awareness suggest they are also more attuned to odors than the other two groups. To conclude, Iranian attars—but not cooks—are better odor namers than laypeople. They also have greater meta‐awareness and differential perceptual responses to odors. These findings further highlight the critical role that expertise and type of experience have on olfactory functions. (shrink)

This papers intends to show that Aristotle's theory on the political nature of man implies a specific difference in relation to other animals and that this does not arise from his understanding of human beings as naturally vulnerable animals that would seek in political life an artifice to redress their insufficiency or individual vulnerability to live. The qualitative difference of human beings in relation to other animals - including political species, such as bees or ants - drives them to an (...) equally specific type of life, whose foundation obeys values that ca be universalized. The political application of these values does not correspond to what is done in the domestic sphere, nor does it correspond to the mere transposition to a quantitatively superior community, because the universality of political values is extracted from what is understood by human beings as necessary for the realization of man as man, not man as an element of nature. (shrink)

Los ejes categoriales que vertebran los artículos reunidos en este dossier colaboran, desde diversas perspectivas, en discusiones y revisiones teórico-prácticas operadas en el siglo XX y profundizadas en el presente desde las humanidades y las ciencias sociales en América Latina y el Caribe. Cada uno de los trabajos se escapa, en sus desarrollos, a la homologación directa de los conceptos propuestos: EXISTENCIAS/CUERPOS/COMUNIDAD. Los tres conceptos implican la necesidad y voluntad epistémico-política de abordar la singularidad de la existencia y de los (...) cuerpos con la pluralidad de las formas de vida. En este sentido, los aportes de cada uno de los colaboradores son significativos. (shrink)

V začetku štiridesetih let devetnajstega stoletja je Joseph Faber javnosti predstavil svoj izum ≫Čudoviti govoreči stroj≪, pozneje poznan pod imenom Euphonia, ki je obenem očaral in vznemirjal svoje občinstvo. Medtem, ko je njegova sposobnost posnemanja človeškega govora v različnih jezikih izkazovala izjemen mehanicistični dosežek, pa je njegov strašljivi glas sprožal nemir. Pričujoči prispevek preučuje dinamiko med Faberjem in njegovim izumom ter vleče vzporednice z Victorjem Frankensteinom Mary Shelley in njegovim ≫stvorom≪. V ospredju sta status umetne stvaritve in zaskrbljujoča narava imitacije, (...) ki jo postavljamo ob bok splošni ambivalentnosti do avtomatonov devetnajstega stoletja. Z analizo srečanja med stvarnikom in stvaritvijo je naš namen preučiti kompleksnost njunega razmerja in grozljivost, ki izhaja iz brisanja meja med človekom in strojem, ko nastopi učinek ≫podobnosti v razliki≪. (shrink)