We argue that developing a human ethics application is an effective method for refining the intent and design of research studies. Our study aimed to investigate the delivery of end-of-life and palliative care nursing to residents of an aged care unit in a Multi-purpose Service/centre in rural Victoria. We used the ethics application process as a strategy to focus the study, and to refine the data collection and analysis techniques. It is our contention that the process of completing the application (...) and gaining ethics approval is laborious; however, the intellectualising that occurs provides researchers with an opportunity to reflect upon and refine their studies, thus ensuring the ultimate success and timely completion of research investigations. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic created enormously difficult decisions for individuals trying to navigate both the risks of the pandemic and the demands of everyday life. Good decision making in such scenarios can have life and death consequences. For this reason, it is important to understand what drives risk assessments during a pandemic, and to investigate the ways that these assessments might deviate from ideal risk assessments. In a preregistered online study of U.S. residents (N = 841) using two blocks of vignettes (...) about potential COVID exposure scenarios, we investigated the effects of moral judgment, importance, and intentionality on COVID infection risk assessments. Results demonstrate that risk judgments are sensitive to factors unrelated to the objective risks of infection. Specifically, activities that are morally justified are perceived as safer while those that might subject people to blame or culpability, are seen as riskier, even when holding objective risk fixed. Similarly, unintentional COVID exposures are judged as safer than intentional COVID exposures. While the effect sizes are small, these findings may have implications for public health and risk communications, particularly if public health officials are themselves subject to these biases. (shrink)

In his recently published two-volume work in epistemology,1 Alvin Plantinga rounds out the discussion (in characteristic fashion) with a subtle and ingenious argument for a striking claim: in this case, his conclusion is that belief in evolutionary naturalism is irrational. Now this claim is not of itself so very surprising; the tantalizing feature here lies rather in the nature of the argument itself. Plantinga contends that taking seriously the hypothesis of evolutionary naturalism [hereafter, N&E] ought to undermine one's confidence in (...) the reliability of our basic cognitive faculties. And if one withholds belief in cognitive reliability, it seems that one ought to likewise refrain from believing propositions that are the output of such faculties. And, for evolutionary naturalists, one such output is belief in evolutionary naturalism itself. Hence, quite apart from comparative evidential considerations that might lead one to prefer theism (or one of its competitors) to N&E, but rather owing to a sort of internal inconsistency (in a suitably broad sense), belief in N&E is shown to be epistemically defective. A bold and intriguing suggestion indeed. Let us take a closer look. (shrink)

This chapter begins with the most economical response to the conclusion that contingent existence is founded in necessary being (NB). It illustrates how one might come to see subtle entailment relations between properties that at first seem mutually independent. The author argues that there must be an internal connection between necessary existence (N), and any other essential features of NB. The chapter highlights that there can be only one kind of NB, whose properties are particulars bound up in relations of (...) mutual entailment. It discusses the varieties of chaos by first considering single‐stage models, of which there are three basic varieties: immutable chaos, abundant chaos and random chaos. The chapter considers three related and more substantial objections to the design inference from fine‐tuning. All of them question the possibility space the argument invokes or the probability judgments that are drawn. (shrink)

This paper criticizes the assumptions behind Robert Brandom’s reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology, contending that Hegel’s concern with the rational structure of experience, his valorization of reflection over ordinary experience and his idea of the necessit y of progress in knowledge cannot be accommodated within the framework of semantic pragmatism. The central contentions are that Brandom’s pragmatism never comes to terms with Hegel’s idea of truth as a result, leading to a historicist distortion, and also that Brandom’s failure to deal with (...) Hegel’s distinction between natural consciousness and the phenomenological observer collapses Hegel’s phenomenology into a philosophy restricted to the level of natural consciousness. (shrink)

This article presents normative information for the Defining Issue Test Version 2 (DIT2) schema scores and most common summary scores based on secondary data from the last 10 years DIT2 database (N = 73740, Mage = 23.11, SD = 7.87, the age range in year = 12–95) maintained by the University of Alabama’s Center for the Study of Ethical Development from 2011 to 2020. More specifically, the study provides (1) norms by education; (2) norms by gender and education; and (3) (...) norms by gender and age for the DIT2. The norms indicate a general but not consistent trend that moral reasoning scores increase by education level. Additionally, the Personal Interest and Maintain Norms scores are higher for males than females for all education levels and age groups while Postconventional, N2, and Type indicator scores are higher for females than males for all education levels and age groups. (shrink)

This book taps the best American thinkers to answer the essential American question: How do we sustain our experiment in government of, by, and for the people? Authored by an extraordinary and politically diverse roster of public officials, scholars, and educators, these chapters describe our nation's civic education problem, assess its causes, offer an agenda for reform, and explain the high stakes at risk if we fail.

Avoiding whinges from various and potentially conflicting stakeholders is a major challenge for sustainable development and for the identification of sustainability scenarios or policies for biodiversity and ecosystem services. It turns out that independently complying with whinge thresholds and constraints of these stakeholders is not sufficient because dynamic ecological-economic interactions and uncertainties occur. Thus more demanding no whinge standards are needed. In this paper, we first argue that these new boundaries can be endogenously exhibited with the mathematical concepts of viability (...) kernel and viable controls. Second, it is shown how these no whinge kernels have components, such as harvesting of resources, that should remain within safe corridor while some other components, in particular biodiversity, have only lower conservation limits. Thus, using radar charts, we show how this no whinge kernels can take the shape of a tree that we name viability tree. These trees of viability capture the idea that the unbounded renewal potential of biodiversity combined with a bounded use of the different ecosystem services are crucial ingredients for the sustainability of socio-ecosystems and the design of no whinge policies reconciling the different stakeholders involved. (shrink)

The concept of quality of life is the basis for a new paradigm of clinical medicine. Its assessment is considered to be an important instrument in determining disease severity and effectiveness of different treatment modalities. Our studies are devoted to the problem of diabetes complications especially anemia in patients with diabetic kidney disease. Anemia in subjects with diabetic nephropathy may result from various pathogenic factors including erythropoietin deficiency, iron deficiency, vitamin B12 and/or folate deficiencies, the effects of proinflammatory cytokines etc. (...) Diabetic patients with anemia are at increased risk of cardiovascular accidents and death. The aim of this study was to assess the influence of anemia on the quality of life of patients with early stages of diabetic nephropathy. We investigated 127 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and early diabetic nephropathy. Anemia was defined according to the World Health Organization criteria. Anemic patients were divided into three groups according to the stage of chronic kidney disease. Patients’ quality of life was assessed with SF-36 health survey. Anemic patients had lower scores of physical role functioning and emotional role functioning as compared to the patients with normal hemoglobin level, irrespective of the stage of chronic kidney disease. Patients with anemia and chronic kidney disease stage 3 had lower scores of general health perceptions, physical functioning, bodily pain, vitality and mental health than patients in the non-anemic group. Social role functioning was similar in anemic and non-anemic patients. The possible mechanisms and implications of the above mentioned findings are discussed with a medical and humanitarian perspective. The directions of further studies are proposed. (shrink)

BackgroundThe ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) guidelines are widely endorsed but compliance is limited. We sought to determine whether journal-requested completion of an ARRIVE checklist improves full compliance with the guidelines.MethodsIn a randomised controlled trial, manuscripts reporting in vivo animal research submitted to PLOS ONE (March–June 2015) were randomly allocated to either requested completion of an ARRIVE checklist or current standard practice. Authors, academic editors, and peer reviewers were blinded to group allocation. Trained reviewers performed outcome adjudication (...) in duplicate by assessing manuscripts against an operationalised version of the ARRIVE guidelines that consists 108 items. Our primary outcome was the between-group differences in the proportion of manuscripts meeting all ARRIVE guideline checklist subitems.ResultsWe randomised 1689 manuscripts (control: n = 844, intervention: n = 845), of which 1269 were sent for peer review and 762 (control: n = 340; intervention: n = 332) accepted for publication. No manuscript in either group achieved full compliance with the ARRIVE checklist. Details of animal husbandry (ARRIVE subitem 9b) was the only subitem to show improvements in reporting, with the proportion of compliant manuscripts rising from 52.1 to 74.1% (X2 = 34.0, df = 1, p = 2.1 × 10−7) in the control and intervention groups, respectively.ConclusionsThese results suggest that altering the editorial process to include requests for a completed ARRIVE checklist is not enough to improve compliance with the ARRIVE guidelines. Other approaches, such as more stringent editorial policies or a targeted approach on key quality items, may promote improvements in reporting. (shrink)

Resumen A partir de la formulación weberiana de teodicea, esta pesquisa sostendrá la centralidad de la cuestión de la teodicea para la religión. No obstante, la definición weberiana de teodicea presenta problemas para su aplicación a textos de la antigüedad, pues, a juicio de Sarot, la teodicea sería un fenómeno moderno que marcaría una nueva manera de pensar sobre el mal. A partir de lo cual, el artículo pasa revista a diversas teodiceas mostrando la variedad de respuestas, colocando en evidencia (...) un panorama distinto al presentado por Weber y Berger. La pregunta sobre el porqué del sufrimiento que hace el visionario y profeta trasciende los modos habituales de pensar la existencia del sufrimiento y del mal en un tiempo específico para abrirse a la interrogación y protesta contra todo sufrimiento llevando a pensar de nuevo la relación de Dios en el mundo, de tal manera que más que hablar de una justificación de Dios por el sufrimiento y el mal en el mundo, la teodicea interroga y desafía al creyente y a Dios para buscar otras respuestas. Summary From the weberian formulation of theodicy, this inquiry will hold the centrality of the question of theodicy for religion. However, the weberian definition of theodicy presents problems for its application to texts of antiquity, because, according to Sarot, theodicy would be a modern phenomenon that would mark a new way of thinking about evil. From which the article reviews various theodicy showing the variety of responses, highlighting a different picture than that presented by Weber and Berger. The question about the suffering of the visionary and the prophet transcends the habitual ways of thinking about the existence of suffering and evil at a specific time to be open to interrogation and protest against all suffering, leading us to think again about God's relationship in the world, in such a way that rather than talking about a justification of God for suffering and evil in the world, theodicy interrogates and challenges the believer and God to look for other answers. (shrink)

The experience of the use of applied containerized biomedical software tools in cloud environment is summarized. The reproducibility of scientific computing in relation with modern technologies of scientific calculations is discussed. The main approaches to biomedical data preprocessing and integration in the framework of the intelligent analytical system are described. At the conditions of pandemic, the success of health care system depends significantly on the regular implementation of effective research tools and population monitoring. The earlier the risks of disease can (...) be identified, the more effective process of preventive measures or treatments can be. This publication is about the creation of a prototype for such a tool within the project «Development of methods, algorithms and intelligent analytical system for processing and analysis of heterogeneous clinical and biomedical data to improve the diagnosis of complex diseases», implementted by the V.M. Glushkov Institute of Cybernetics, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, together with the United Institute of Informatics Problems, National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. The insurers, entering the market, can insure mostly low risks by facilitating more frequent changes of insurers by consumers and mixing the overall health insurance market. Socio-demographic variables can be risk adjusters. Since age and gender have a relatively small explanatory power, other socio-demographic variables were studied – marital status, retirement status, disability status, educational level, income level. Because insurers have an interest in beneficial diagnoses for their policyholders, they are also interested in the ability to interpret relevant information – upcoding: insurers can encourage their policyholders to consult with doctors more often to select as many diagnoses as possible. Many countries and health care systems use diagnostic information to determine the reimbursement to a service provider, revealing the necessary data. For processing and analysis of these data, software implementations of construction for classifiers, allocation of informative features, processing of heterogeneous medical and biological variables for carrying out scientific research in the field of clinical medicine are developed. The experience of the use of applied containerized biomedical software tools in cloud environment is summarized. The reproducibility of scientific computing in relation with modern technologies of scientific calculations is discussed. Particularly, attention is paid to containerization of biomedical applications, this permits to get reproducibility of the conditions in which the calculations took place, technologies of software pipelining of calculations, that allows to organize flow calculations, and technologies for parameterization of software environment, that allows to reproduce, if necessary, an identical computing environment. The main approaches to biomedical data preprocessing and integration in the framework of the intelligent analytical system are described. The experience of using the developed linear classifier, gained during its testing on artificial and real data, allows us to conclude about several advantages provided by the containerized form of the created application: it permits to provide access to real data located in cloud environment; it is possible to perform calculations to solve research problems on cloud resources both with the help of developed tools and with the help of cloud services; such a form of research organization makes numerical experiments reproducible, i.e. any other researcher can compare the results of their developments on specific data that have already been studied by others, in order to verify the conclusions and technical feasibility of new results; there exists a universal opportunity to use the developed tools on technical devices of various classes from a personal computer to powerful cluster. (shrink)

Fruto de una convergencia de motivos e intereses procedentes de diversas disciplinas, los estudios sobre la argumentación han adquirido sus propias señas de identidad como conocimiento, análisis y evaluación del discurso argumentativo a través de sus dimensiones o proyecciones lógica, dialéctica, retórica y socio-institucional. La presente obra trata de reunir, precisar y articular las nociones básicas y los conceptos determinantes de los desarrollos que hoy tienen lugar en ese campo. Este Compendio de lógica, argumentación y retórica se ofrece como una (...) obra de referencia, una herramienta de trabajo y un estímulo para los estudiantes de —y los interesados o los preocupados por— la argumentación, tanto en el plano internacional como, primordialmente, en el medio cultural hispánico e hispanoamericano. No existía hasta ahora una publicación de estas características, a pesar de su necesidad tanto desde el punto de vista didáctico, y en atención a intereses prácticos, como desde el punto de vista teórico. Su elaboración ha ocupado a 59 autores, especialistas y estudiosos de diversos medios académicos y nacionalidades, en la confección de las 176 entradas de las que consta. (shrink)

"El presente volumen colectivo recoge las ideas sobre la relación entre filosofía, política y religión de pensadores capitales de la segunda mitad del siglo XX. Entre otros, Berlin, Arendt, Oakeshott, Aron, Hayek, Popper, Habermas, Taylor, Ratzinger, Strauss o Rawls. Los lectores encontrarán que el cuadro general que se desprende de su lectura no permite reducir su contenido a una idea fuerza o a una tesis general que unifique el libro. Los autores tratados, provenientes de disciplinas distintas, con intereses temáticos y (...) sensibilidades diversas, coinciden, sin embargo, en ofrecer una reconsideración teórica del papel de la religión en la sociedad y la política contemporáneas. Esta pluralidad de posiciones se presenta al lector como fruto de la indeterminación de las sociedades políticas occidentales respecto al problema de la religión. De esta forma, los clásicos contemporáneos que se visitan nos invitan a una discusión profunda y matizada, que servirá para intentar distinguir, de manera equilibrada, tanto los elementos donde religión y política han sido y son esferas enfrentadas, como aquellos donde el encuentro entre Atenas y Jerusalén produce una relación positiva."_ Editorial. (shrink)

According to the expressive view of voting, a voter derives expressive utility from casting a vote. We present two possible sources of expressive utility: social interaction with voters having the same political preferences, and interestingness of the election. First, it has been suggested that a voter's expressive utility may increase when there are more voters having the same political preference. We extend this line of study and test the hypothesis that a voter's expressive utility increases as the number of voters (...) having the same political preferences increases in the local community, where interaction occurs more frequently with others than it does with others in distant communities. Second, we propose and test the other hypothesis, that voters’ expressive utility is larger when the election is more interesting. Using 2008 parliamentary election data from Korea, where the election consists of both 245 single-member districts and only one nationwide district for proportional representatives, we find supporting evidence for these two arguments: the turnout rate is significantly and positively related to the share of proportional representation votes for the largest party in each single-member district; the turnout rate is also significantly and positively related to the number of polls for single-member district election conducted by major broadcasting companies, which we use as a proxy variable for interestingness of the election. (shrink)

Objectives: To study the attitudes of both medical and non-medical students towards the do-not-resuscitate decision in a university in Hong Kong, and the factors affecting their attitudes.Methods: A questionnaire-based survey conducted in the campus of a university in Hong Kong. Preferences and priorities of participants on cardiopulmonary resuscitation in various situations and case scenarios, experience of death and dying, prior knowledge of DNR and basic demographic data were evaluated.Results: A total of 766 students participated in the study. There were statistically (...) significant differences in their DNR decisions in various situations between medical and non-medical students, clinical and preclinical students, and between students who had previously experienced death and dying and those who had not. A prior knowledge of DNR significantly affected DNR decision, although 66.4% of non-medical students and 18.7% of medical students had never heard of DNR. 74% of participants from both medical and non-medical fields considered the patient’s own wish as the most important factor that the healthcare team should consider when making DNR decisions. Family wishes might not be decisive on the choice of DNR.Conclusions: Students in medical and non-medical fields held different views on DNR. A majority of participants considered the patient’s own wish as most important in DNR decisions. Family wishes were considered less important than the patient’s own wishes. (shrink)

El desaf o de la bio tica es el segundo de una serie de vol menes que lleva al p blico lector la reflexi n y discusi n de diversos temas de este campo de estudio desde una perspectiva laica, racional, multidisciplinaria y plural. Despu s del xito del primer volumen, la construcci n de la bio tica, en este texto se tratan cuestiones que se debaten en todo el planeta. Las humanidades y el mundo actual frente a la t (...) cnica moderna; el papel de la tica en la investigaci n cient fica; el concepto de persona; el aborto tard o y la terminaci n de la vida en neonatos; la objeci n de conciencia en la medicina; los conflictos entre derechos privados y bienes p blicos; la relaci n entre la pr ctica m dica y la industria farmac utica; la inmigraci n y el mestizaje, y los derechos humanos. Los autores de estos temas son m dicos, psic logos, cient ficos, soci logos, abogados y fil sofos. (shrink)

Aproximación al pensamiento de Rodolfo Kusch -- Canto e identidad en el Martín Fierro según Carlos Astrada y Rodolfo Kusch -- Donde el barro se subleva -- La rehabilitación del saber seminal como camino hacia una mística popular -- Kusch y el impulso social de nuestra época -- La barbarización de la civilización, una grieta de antaño -- ¿De dónde pensarnos?

La presente antología es fruto de la colaboración entre profesores de las Universidades de Paraíba (Brasil) y Jaén (España) y sólo pretende presentar un conjunto de textos extraídos de obras de autores de origen judeoconverso, o vinculados con la antigua Universidad de Baeza (siglos XVI y XVII). En estos fragmentos quedan de manifiesto planteamientos comunes sobre la observación de la naturaleza y el conocimiento, pautas y orientaciones de carácter pedagógico, criterios para la organización del cuerpo social, visión de la espiritualidad, (...) inquietudes por la formación de la mujer, o el problema de la evangelización y adoctrinamiento de los amerindios. (shrink)

_The purpose_ of this study is the reflection on ways of philosophical legitimation for the "Self-made-man" idea in the worldview of the Renaissance and Reformation. _Theoretical basis._ Historical, comparative, and hermeneutic methods became the basis for this. The study is based on the works of Nicholas of Cusa, G. Pico della Mirandola, N. Machiavelli, M. Montaigne, E. Roterodamus, M. Luther, J. Calvin together with modern researchers of this period. _Originality._ The analysis allows us to come to the conclusion that casts (...) doubt on the still widespread belief according to which the emergence of the "Self-made-man" idea is localized by the process of forming the American cultural code and the ideological heritage of Benjamin Franklin. It is highlighted that the formation of this idea is the result of a long process that originated in the ancient world and gains a special impetus in the Renaissance and Reformation. Precisely in the cultural context of the latter, the ancient intention to recognize the individual’s right to self-determination and self-government, which in the depths of Christian theology acquires only a potentially universal character, becomes not only acceptable but also, in the context of Protestantism worldview, the only admissible, in fact, individual’s obligatory life guidelines. _Conclusions._ Humanistic and reformation thoughts quite naturally led to further ideological legitimation of the person’s idea of who is creating oneself. This legitimation was during the complex interaction of numerous factors of culture in the Late Middle Ages, as well as ideas and intentions inherited from Antiquity. Key among them was the gradual formation of a new social order, in essence, indifferent to paternalistic rudiments, together with the ethics of Protestantism corresponding to it. The latter does not only legalize but, de facto, sacralizes the individual’s reorientation from hopes for the synergy of God’s grace and own free will in personal salvation, toward the self-reliance and personal efforts, awareness of personal responsibility for the own fate as key principles of the "Self-made-man" concept. (shrink)