This narrative symposium examines the relationship of bioethics practice to personal experiences of illness. A call for stories was developed by Tod Chambers, the symposium editor, and editorial staff and was sent to several commonly used bioethics listservs and posted on the Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics website. The call asked authors to relate a personal story of being ill or caring for a person who is ill, and to describe how this affected how they think about bioethical questions and the (...) practice of medicine. Eighteen individuals were invited to submit full stories based on review of their proposals. Twelve stories are published in this symposium, and six supplemental stories are published online only through Project MUSE. Authors explore themes of vulnerability, suffering, communication, voluntariness, cultural barriers, and flaws in local healthcare systems through stories about their own illnesses or about caring for children, partners, parents and grandparents. Commentary articles by Arthur Frank, Bradley Lewis, and Carol Taylor follow the collection of personal narratives. (shrink)

Current accounts suggest that self-referential thought serves a pivotal function in the human ability to simulate the future during mind-wandering. Using experience sampling, this hypothesis was tested in two studies that explored the extent to which self-reflection impacts both retrospection and prospection during mind-wandering. Study 1 demonstrated that a brief period of self-reflection yielded a prospective bias during mind-wandering such that participants’ engaged more frequently in spontaneous future than past thought. In Study 2, individual differences in the strength of self-referential (...) thought — as indexed by the memorial advantage for self rather than other-encoded items — was shown to vary with future thinking during mind-wandering. Together these results confirm that self-reflection is a core component of future thinking during mind-wandering and provide novel evidence that a key function of the autobiographical memory system may be to mentally simulate events in the future. (shrink)

Euthanasia and assisted suicide have been legally possible in the Netherlands since 2001, provided that statutory due care criteria are met, including: voluntary and well-considered request; unbearable suffering without prospect of improvement; informing the patient; lack of a reasonable alternative; independent second physician’s opinion. ‘Unbearable suffering’ must have a medical basis, either somatic or psychiatric, but there is no requirement of limited life expectancy. All EAS cases must be reported and are scrutinised by regional review committees. The purpose of this (...) study was to investigate whether any particular difficulties arise when the EAS due care criteria are applied to patients with an intellectual disability and/or autism spectrum disorder. The 416 case summaries available on the RTE website were searched for intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorder. Direct content analysis was used on these nine cases. Assessment of decisional capacity was mentioned in eight cases, but few details given; in two cases, there had been uncertainty or disagreement about capacity. Two patients had progressive somatic conditions. For most, suffering was due to an inability to cope with changing circumstances or increasing dependency; in several cases, suffering was described in terms of characteristics of living with an autism spectrum disorder, rather than an acquired medical condition. Some physicians struggled to understand the patient’s perspective. Treatment refusal was a common theme, leading physicians to conclude that EAS was the only remaining option. There was a lack of detail on social circumstances and how patients were informed about their prognosis. Autonomy and decisional capacity are highly complex for patients with intellectual disabilities and difficult to assess; capacity tests in these cases did not appear sufficiently stringent. Assessment of suffering is particularly difficult for patients who have experienced life-long disability. The sometimes brief time frames and limited number of physician-patient meetings may not be sufficient to make a decision as serious as EAS. The Dutch EAS due care criteria are not easily applied to people with intellectual disabilities and/or autism spectrum disorder, and do not appear to act as adequate safeguards. (shrink)

Obesity is the result of people consistently consuming more calories than they expend. A complex interaction of social and environmental conditions affects both energy consumption and physical activity levels. These conditions include, but are not limited to the following factors: the availability of affordable and healthy food; price disparities between healthy and less healthy foods; access to or perceived safety of recreation facilities; and the conduciveness of the physical environment to active modes of transportation, such as walking and biking. As (...) outlined in the “Assessing Laws and Legal Authorities for Obesity Prevention and Control” paper in this supplement issue, laws and government policies in the United States influence nearly all of these social and environmental factors. (shrink)

Infantologies is a collective writing project designed to express and summarise important ideas, approaches and forms of advocacy in a short and condensed method, in order to present a network of d...

“Additional needs children” is a term often used in the education system to describe children with school-based problems characterised by learning difficulties arising from academic, social and emotional stressors including, but not limited to, clinically diagnosed Neurodevelopmental Disorders (NDD). What has seldom been investigated is what biopsychosocial characteristics and other common comorbid behaviours are associated with academic learning difficulties. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between anxiety levels (Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale- Parent Report), autism traits (...) (Autism Spectrum Quotient – Child Version) and sleep quality (Sleep Disturbance Scale for Children) in ‘additional needs children’ with a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Language Impairment or Mixed Diagnosis without an intellectual disability. The results demonstrated that the ASD group reported more impairments associated with comorbid anxiety and sleep compared to the other clinically diagnosed groups. Similarly, greater anxiety level was positively associated with a greater number of autism traits and poorer sleep quality regardless of diagnostic group. This suggests that higher anxiety symptoms are a core biomarker of children who often first come to their teacher’s attention with reading and learning difficulties (i.e. “additional needs”), irrespective of the primary cause of school-based problems. (shrink)

The goals of vascular composite allotransplantation for hand are to maximize functional status and psychosocial wellbeing and to improve quality of life. Candidates are carefully vetted by transplant programs through an extensive evaluation process to exclude those patients with contraindications and to select those that are most likely to attain functional or quality of life benefit from transplant. Patient choice for any treatment, however, requires that candidates be able to understand the risks, benefits, and alternatives before choosing to proceed. This (...) study aimed to understand patients’ knowledge and perceptions about treatment options for hand loss, including hand transplant. This study will be used to inform a standardized education approach and develop conversation aids for use by clinicians and patients throughout the treatment decision process. Ten individuals who had experienced hand amputation or had congenital limb loss were interviewed to better understand previous and current decisions about treatment, experiences in adjusting to their treatment, and perceptions about hand VCA. From this qualitative interview data, four findings emerged: knowledge and education around VCA as a treatment option; adaptation of individuals with limb loss; fear of risk associated with transplantation; issues of aging and overuse injuries to existing limbs. Results suggests that there is opportunity for expanding education about all treatment options for patients with new loss, long-term loss, and congenital limb loss. Establishing a baseline of knowledge about all options–prosthetics, rehabilitative strategies, and VCA—can help patients evaluate their values and goals of treatment. Issues associated with aging, including overuse and injury, and adaptability over the life course should be included in considerations about treatment choices. Data indicate the need for routinely assessing patient preferences about treatment choice so patients can plan for their future as they adapt and age and as technology for treatments change. To assure that thorough information is provided for current and future decision-making, education about treatment choices and selection procedures for VCA should be standardized. (shrink)

A major shift has taken place since the 1960s concerning disclosure to patients that they have a diagnosis of cancer and that their disease is considered terminal. Full disclosure is now considered the patient's right in the United States. However, there remain many countries in which nondisclosure is still the norm. When patients from those countries are diagnosed with cancer in America, differences in attitudes and expectations can cause conflict and misunderstanding.

ABSTRACT This article presents the analysis of a data sample collected from a survey conducted with Brazilian and Portuguese youngsters. Our aim was to identify textual supports used for literary reading, as well as the authors and works most read by this public so that we may reflect upon the influences subjacent to those choices. To do so, we analyzed the answers given to a questionnaire applied to students in the last year of High School, in both contexts. This is (...) research is exploratory, of quantitative and qualitative nature, with theoretical support in Barthes (2004), Balça and Costa (2017), Pennac (1993), Petit (2009), Todorov (2010), among others who discuss the subject. Results show that young people prefer to read literary works in print, which are mostly chosen according to the requirements of school institutions and the publishing market. (shrink)

This study analyzes interview data from 37 science and engineering faculty involved in university-industry relations. Faculty are particularly concerned about how these relations affect their work with graduate students. Our analysis is guided by ritual exchange theory and network theory. First, we explore the ways faculty define and redefine what makes industrial or corporate research appropriate or inappropriate for training graduates. Second, we examine difficulties and tensions faculty face when they work with students on industrial or corporate projects. These difficulties (...) and tensions center on intellectual property and we look at how faculty negotiate with industry over restrictions on publication of graduate student and faculty research results, on faculty and graduate student involvement in start-up companies, and on faculty and graduate student ownership of intellectual property. (shrink)

As características do teletrabalho podem contribuir tanto para o aumento quanto para a diminuição do estresse do trabalhador. Este estudo buscou identificar os preditores de estresse, em termos de vantagens e desvantagens do teletrabalho, recursos e demandas psicossociais relacionados ao trabalho e interação trabalho-família, entre servidores da Justiça Federal do Rio Grande do Sul que desenvolvem teletrabalho. Os 130 participantes responderam o questionário de dados demográficos e laborais, escala de estresse percebido, vantagens e desvantagens do teletrabalho, recursos-demandas do trabalho e (...) interação trabalho-família. Análise de regressão linear múltipla identificou um modelo preditivo de estresse composto pelas variáveis de interações trabalho-família e família-trabalho negativas, autoeficácia e sobrecarga. Os resultados apontam fatores de risco e proteção para o estresse entre teletrabalhadores. Ressalta-se a necessidade de legislação laboral nacional que regulamente o teletrabalho, de forma a configurá-lo de maneira mais concreta, permitindo ações visando à saúde dos trabalhadores. (shrink)

The study investigated the influence of resilience and dispositional optimism on, first, emotional distress and, second, the intention to self-isolate, experienced by people with a lower and higher illness risk, during the lockdown imposed in Spain during the first COVID-19 wave. These effects were investigated against the background of the Health Belief Model. A convenience sample of N = 325 participants completed an online survey including an ad-hoc questionnaire measuring the HBM core factors: Perceived health threat, and perceived quarantine benefits (...) and costs. Self-efficacy and perceived social pressure were also measured. Based on reviews regarding pandemic outbreaks, quarantine benefits were conceptualized as the perceived effectiveness and solidary contribution of self-isolating in line with the quarantine protocols. Quarantine “psychosocial” costs were conceptualized as a composite of perceived boredom, loneliness, and economic concerns. Findings revealed an asymmetrical pattern of results so that people at higher risk were more distressed by the perceived severity of getting infected whereas people at lower risk were more distressed by the psychosocial costs. Moreover, resilience and optimism were more “protective” against distress within the lower and higher risk groups, respectively. In addition, quarantine benefits and self-efficacy promoted the intention to self-isolate within both groups. However, optimism hindered such intention. This finding is discussed in the light of links between dispositional optimism and optimistic bias; the underestimation of experiencing negative events, which can relax the perceived health risk. Based on these findings, communication campaigns should prioritize information about the effectiveness of the implemented preventive behaviors rather than the costs of not implementing them, and be cautionary in encouraging excessive optimism. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 45, Issue 11, November 2021.

Reconstructive allografts using Vascularized Composite Allotransplantation are providing individuals living with upper limb loss and facial disfigurement with new opportunities for a sensate, esthetically acceptable, and functional alternative to current treatment strategies. Important research attention is being paid to how best to assess and screen candidates for VCA, measure optimal patient outcomes, and support patient adherence to lifelong behaviors and medical regimens. Far less attention, however, has been dedicated to the team science required for these complex VCA teams to form, (...) prepare, and provide the highest quality clinical and psychosocial care to those receiving VCA. VCA teams are unique in that they require specialized team members whose scope of practice may not otherwise overlap. The team also needs to constantly negotiate balancing patient safety with multiple risks throughout the transplant process. This study aimed to elucidate the team science needed for this highly innovative and complex area of medicine. Using in-depth qualitative interviews with 14 VCA team members and observations at team meetings, we found that careful consideration of team composition, team structure, and organizational commitment influences team performance and patient outcomes, but that to be efficient and truly effective, teams need to commit to developing processes that foster collaboration. These processes are action-oriented, strategic and interpersonal. Dedication and commitment to team science allows teams to manage conflict under stress and exercise ways to leverage strengths to provide optimal performance or patient psychosocial and clinical outcomes. This study can provide insight into quality improvement efforts for VCA teams and guidance for other transplant programs that wish to consider expansion into VCA. (shrink)

The power of technology? -- Risk and responsibility? -- The ethical anatomy of disasters? -- Remaking nature? -- Tinkering with humans? -- Information's wild frontiers? -- Whose knowledge, whose property? -- Reclaiming the future? -- The ethics of invention?

In this paper we show that the class of fork squares has a complete orthodox axiomatization in fork arrow logic (FAL). This result may be seen as an orthodox counterpart of Venema's non-orthodox axiomatization for the class of squares in arrow logic. FAL is the modal logic of fork algebras (FAs) just as arrow logic is the modal logic of relation algebras (RAs). FAs extend RAs by a binary fork operator and are axiomatized by adding three equations to RAs equational (...) axiomatization. A proper FA is an algebra of relations where the fork is induced by an injective operation coding pair formation. In contrast to RAs, FAs are representable by proper ones and their equational theory has the expressive power of full first-order logic. A square semantics (the set of arrows is ᵎ x ᵎ for some set ᵎ) for arrow logic was defined by Y. Venema. Due to the negative results about the finite axiomatizability of representable RAs, Venema provided a non-orthodox finite axiomatization for arrow logic by adding a new rule governing the applications of a difference operator. We address here the question of extending the type of relational structures to define orthodox axiomatizations for the class of squares. Given the connections between this problem and the finitization problem addressed by I. Németi, we suspect that this cannot be done by using only logical operations. The modal version of the FA equations provides an orthodox axiomatization for FAL which is complete in view of the representability of FAs. Here we review this result and carry it further to prove that this orthodox axiomatization for FAL also axiomatizes the class of fork squares. (shrink)

Research clearly shows that increasing the number of women in leadership positions yields financial benefits for the organization. Despite this, there has been limited upward movement in the percentage of women in senior leadership positions. Few studies have examined the linkage between masculine culture and the implications for men. Using a mixed methods approach with two studies, this research focused on four aspects of masculine contest cultural norms and how they impact male identity and perceptions of career advancement. Study 1 (...) used a qualitative interview study of 10 male executives and found that masculine contest culture norms were evident but were being perpetuated and reinforced by organizational culture instead of individual masculine identities. In addition, Study 1 demonstrated a shift in masculine contest culture norms reducing the emphasis on the strong male archetype. Study 2 examines the relationship between masculine contest culture attributes impacting perceived opportunities for career development and promotion. We evaluated these relationships through a large‐scale survey study and found that at higher levels of masculine contest culture norms, men's perceptions of procedural justice for career development and promotion were lower compared with women. Broadly, the findings suggest that masculine archetypes of leadership negatively affect men and women. (shrink)

Effective public health nursing relies on the development of responsive and collaborative relationships with families. While nurse–family relationships are endorsed by home visitation programs, training nurses to follow visit‐to‐visit protocols may unintentionally undermine these relationships and may also obscure nurses’ clinical understanding and situated knowledge. With these issues in mind, we designed a home‐visiting intervention, titled Listening with Care, to cultivate nurses’ relationships with teen mothers and nurses’ clinical judgment and reasoning. Rather than using protocols, the training for the intervention (...) introduced nurses to narrative methods and therapeutic tools. This mixed‐method pilot study included a quasi‐experimental design to examine the effect of the intervention on teen mothers’ depressive symptoms, self‐silencing, repeat pregnancy, and educational progress compared to teens who received usual care. Qualitative data were collected from the nurses to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention and therapeutic tools. The nurses endorsed the therapeutic tools and expected to continue using them in their practice. Despite the lack of statistically significant differences in outcomes between groups, findings suggest that further study of the intervention is warranted. Future studies may have implications for strengthening hidden aspects of nursing that make a difference in the lives of teen mothers. (shrink)

This paper investigates the effect of the countervailing forces within organizations of formal systems that direct employees toward ethical acts and informal systems that direct employees toward fraudulent behavior. We study the effect of these forces on deception, a key component of fraud. The results provide support for an interactive effect of these formal and informal systems. The effectiveness of formal systems is greater when there is a strong informal “push” to do wrong; conversely, in the absence of a strong (...) push to do wrong, the strength of formal systems has little impact on fraudulent behavior. These results help to explain why the implementation of formal systems within organizations has been met with mixed results and identifies when formal systems designed to promote ethical behavior will be most efficacious. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Teacher as Public ArtSheila Wright (bio)I entered the public art arena as an idealist optimist. Now, two decades later, I am a pragmatist realist. How did my dream of a populist marketplace turn into a nightmare?—Richard Posner, Artist vs. PublicLike Posner, many faculty members enter the academy as idealists, optimistic that their goals for and the promise of higher education will be fulfilled and their quest for knowledge inspired, (...) only to discover years later that they have become pragmatist realists.1 For many, change is necessary for survival, career success, and fulfilling dreams. At what point, however, might otherwise idealistic, visionary, and highly capable people become oppressed, disillusioned, and/or marginalized as professors? Under what conditions do professional dreams of transforming education and critical pedagogy become frustrated by rigid adherence to the status quo? How might initial aspirations of achieving a higher education become politicized and racialized as seemingly inescapable nightmares?For some faculty—particularly those of color and, especially, women working in historically white institutions—the assault on dreams occurs not only in nightmares during sleep but as monochrome, white-mares while awake.2 So, what does it mean just to be a professor in an environment where the simple quest to teach, conduct research, and serve can be frustrated by faulty, stereotypical, and often hostile assumptions, attitudes, and reactions to gender and skin? How might professors in these circumstances [End Page 83] respond to social constructions that manifest as body politics and racialized consciousness while simultaneously celebrating their identity, inner spirit, and cultural self—their ideals and visions? How do professors in these situations respond to institutional policies and practices and the social, cultural, and political nuances of place? Further, how can professors learn from their experiences and strive for meaningful transformation without the risk of being viewed as an "other," "unorthodox," an "activist," or worse?In this article "teacher as public art" is used as a metaphor to describe and explain the all-too-common perceptions and experiences of professors of color, especially women, within the academy. More specifically, this article reports findings from a qualitative study focused on what it means to be a woman of color in the academy. The findings presented are consistent with those encountered in a growing body of literature on the topic. Like other work in this area, an analysis of historical contexts can provide a critical link to understanding the cultural nuances framing the formation of professors' work identities. Triangulated data for this study included a visual art exhibition, personal reflections on the experiences of teaching in higher education, and formal research involving women faculty of color. Data were analyzed and interpreted based on literature defining the three worlds of professorship (scholarship, teaching, and service). The presentation of results and findings included here is intended to encourage further conversation regarding the retention, promotion, and tenure of faculty of color.Information and PerspectiveHighlighted throughout this discussion are (1) the relevance of locating self within the context of people and place; and (2) the importance of bringing meaning, authenticity, and credibility to teaching and research through continued reflection, self-assessment, and inquiry. The case presented is essentially a first attempt to accomplish these goals using self-study, personal experience, and public knowledge as an integrated vehicle for professional transformation. As both the researcher and a participant, the process required that I be simultaneously subjective and objective in order to examine the multiplicity of dialogues related to the professional self. In other words, the process required that I honor the voice of the person within—for example, artist, professor, woman, person of color—while, as a researcher, at the same time honoring the voices of those who participated in the study. As someone who came late to the academy (I was forty when I received my first tenure-track position), I drew for this study not only upon my prior experience and identity as a professor and educational researcher but also upon a myriad of pre-academy experiences and identities as, for example, an artist, art educator, administrator, and aspiring social reformer. The dynamic relationship [End Page 84] between those various identities facilitated and sustained a more cohesive... (shrink)

Xenotransplantation - the transfer of living tissue between species - has long been heralded as a potential solution to the severe organ shortage crisis experienced by the United Kingdom and other 'developed' nations. However, the significant risks which accompany this biotechnology led the United Kingdom to adopt a cautious approach to its regulation, with the establishment of a non-departmental public body - UKXIRA - to oversee the development of this technology on a national basis. In December 2006 UKXIRA was quietly (...) disbanded and replaced with revised guidance, which entrusts the regulation of xenotransplantation largely to research ethics committees. In this article we seek to problematize this new regulatory framework, arguing that specialist expertise and national oversight are necessary components of an adequate regulatory framework for a biotechnology which poses new orders of risk, challenges the adequacy of traditional understandings of autonomy and consent, and raises significant animal welfare concerns. We argue for a more considered and holistic approach, based on adequate consultation, to regulating biotechnological developments in the United Kingdom. (shrink)

Dreamscapes of Modernity offers the first book-length treatment of sociotechnical imaginaries, a concept originated by Sheila Jasanoff and developed in close collaboration with Sang-Hyun Kim to describe how visions of scientific and technological progress carry with them implicit ideas about public purposes, collective futures, and the common good. The book presents a mix of case studies—including nuclear power in Austria, Chinese rice biotechnology, Korean stem cell research, the Indonesian Internet, US bioethics, global health, and more—to illustrate how the concept (...) of sociotechnical imaginaries can lead to more sophisticated understandings of the national and transnational politics of science and technology. A theoretical introduction sets the stage for the contributors’ wide-ranging analyses, and a conclusion gathers and synthesizes their collective findings. The book marks a major theoretical advance for a concept that has been rapidly taken up across the social sciences and promises to become central to scholarship in science and technology studies. (shrink)

Logics for generally were introduced for handling assertions with vague notions,such as generally, most, several, etc., by generalized quantifiers, ultrafilter logic being an interesting case. Here, we show that ultrafilter logic can be faithfully embedded into a first-order theory of certain functions, called coherent. We also use generic functions (akin to Skolem functions) to enable elimination of the generalized quantifier. These devices permit using methods for classical first-order logic to reason about consequence in ultrafilter logic.

This paper examines the legal and ethical aspects of traceback testing, a process in which patients who have been previously diagnosed with ovarian cancer are identified and offered genetic testing so that their family members can be informed of their genetic risk and can also choose to undergo testing. Specifically, this analysis examines the ethical and legal limits in implementing traceback testing in cases when the patient is deceased and can no longer consent to genetic testing.

Background Ethics committees typically apply the common principles of autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence and justice to research proposals but with variable weighting and interpretation. This paper reports a comparison of ethical requirements in an international cross-cultural study and discusses their implications. Discussion The study was run concurrently in New Zealand, UK, Israel, Canada and USA and involved testing hypotheses about believability of testimonies regarding alleged child sexual abuse. Ethics committee requirements to conduct this study ranged from nil in Israel to considerable (...) amendments designed to minimise participant harm in New Zealand. Assessment of minimal risk is a complex and unreliable estimation further compounded by insufficient information on probabilities of particular individuals suffering harm. Estimating potential benefits/ risks ratio and protecting participants' autonomy similarly are not straightforward exercises. Summary Safeguarding moral/humane principles should be balanced with promotion of ethical research which does not impede research posing minimal risk to participants. In ensuring that ethical standards are met and research has scientific merit, ethics committees have obligations to participants (to meet their rights and protect them from harm); to society (to ensure good quality research is conducted); and to researchers (to treat their proposals with just consideration and respect). To facilitate meeting all these obligations, the preferable focus should be promotion of ethical research, rather than the prevention of unethical research, which inevitably results in the impediment of researchers from doing their work. How the ethical principles should be applied and balanced requires further consideration. (shrink)

From 1895, the year he published his first signed article, to four days before his death in 1970 when he wrote his last, Bertrand Russell was a powerful force in the world of mathematics, philosophy, human rights and the struggle for peace. During those years he published 70 books, almost as many pamphlets and over 2,000 articles, he also contributed pieces to some 200 books. The availability of the Bertrand Russell Archives at McMaster University since 1968 has made it possible (...) for the first time to compile a full, descriptive bibliography of his writings. The Collected Papers are based on it. Fully annotated, the Bibliography is textually oriented and will guide the scholar, collector and general reader to the authoritative editions of Russell's works. It includes references to the locations of all known speeches and interviews, and reproductions of the dust-jackets of Russell's books. Blackwell, Ruja and Turcon have cooperated for nearly 20 years on the new Bibliography. Lord Russell saw the extensive additions for it near the end of his life and declared: `I am impressed.'. (shrink)

Eighty-four undergraduate male subjects were tachistoscopically exposed either to an experimental message designed to arouse anxiety , or to a neutral control message , at 4 ms or 200 ms durations. Electrodermal responses were recorded before, during and after exposure to the critical messages. Three measures of awareness of 4 ms stimuli were used; recall, recognition and discrimination. No evidence of stimulus awareness was found on any of these measures. Only subjects exposed to the experimental message at 4 ms durations (...) showed a significant increase in EDR from pre-exposure to message exposure period. These results support Silverman's hypothesis that drive-related stimuli must be presented subliminally in order to produce significant effects on behavior, and are consistent with Bornstein's hypothesis that stimulus awareness inhibits responding to drive- and affect-related stimuli. (shrink)

Continuous sedation is increasingly used as a way to relieve symptoms at the end of life. Current research indicates that some physicians, nurses, and relatives involved in this practice experience emotional and/or moral distress. This study aims to provide insight into what may influence how professional and/or family carers cope with such distress.

MENDENHALL TJ, BERGE JM, HARPER P, GREENCROW B, LITTLEWALKER N, WHITEEAGLE S and BROWNOWL S. Nursing Inquiry 2010; 17: 359–372 The Family Education Diabetes Series (FEDS): community‐based participatory research with a midwestern American Indian communityIndigenous people around the globe tend to struggle with poorer health and well‐being than their non‐indigenous counterparts. One area that this is especially evident is in the epidemic of diabetes in North America’s American Indians (AIs) – who evidence higher prevalence rates and concomitant disease‐related complications than (...) any other racial/ethnic group. As researchers and AI communities work together to transcend conventional top‐down, service‐delivery approaches to care, community‐based participatory research is beginning to show promise as a way to partner contemporary biomedical knowledge with the lived‐experience, wisdom, and customs of Indigenous people. This study describes the Family Education Diabetes Series (FEDS) as an example of such effort, and highlights pilot findings assessing its value and impact across key diabetes‐relevant variables. Following 36 intervention participants across baseline, 3‐month, and 6‐month time periods, data show significant improvements in weight, blood pressure, and metabolic control (A1c). Strengths and limitations of this investigation are presented, along with suggestions about how to further advance and empirically test the work across other Indigenous communities. (shrink)

This paper will discuss the introduction of Restorative Approaches (RA) in schools, contextualising this within a discussion of international concerns about school safety, (in)discipline and school violence. It will explore questions about the compatibility of RA with zero tolerance and positive/assertive discipline approaches and the use of disciplinary exclusion in a ‘risk society’.

In the past twenty years, the field of science and technology studies (S&TS) has made considerable progress toward illuminating the relationship between scientific knowledge and political power. These insights have not yet been synthesized or presented in a form that systematically highlights the connections between S&TS and other social sciences. This timely collection of essays by some of the leading scholars in the field attempts to fill that gap. The book develops the theme of "co-production", showing how scientific knowledge both (...) embeds and is embedded in social identities, institutions, representations and discourses. Accordingly, the authors argue, ways of knowing the world are inseparably linked to the ways in which people seek to organize and control it. Through studies of emerging knowledges, research practices and political institutions, the authors demonstrate that the idiom of co-production importantly extends the vocabulary of the traditional social sciences, offering fresh analytic perspectiveson the nexus of science, power and culture. (shrink)

Though feminists are correct to note that conventional standards of sexiness are oppressive, we argue that feminism should reclaim sexiness rather than reject it. We argue for an aesthetic and ethical practice of working to shift from conventional attributions of sexiness to respectful attributions, in which embodied sexual subjects are appreciated in their full individual magnificence. We argue that undertaking this practice is an ethical obligation, since it contributes to the full recognition of others’ humanity. We discuss the relationship of (...) ethical to aesthetic considerations and argue that the respectful notion of sexiness is a genuinely aesthetic one, even though it does not involve assessment in relation to standards. (shrink)

The rapidly increasing number of cases of Zika virus and limited understanding of its congenital sequelae (e.g., microcephaly) led to stories of fear and uncertainty across social media and other mass communication networks. In this study, we used techniques generic to netnography, a form of ethnography, using Internet‐based computer‐mediated communications as a source of data to understand the experience and perceptions of families with infants diagnosed with Zika‐related microcephaly. We screened 27 YouTube™ videos published online between October 2015 and July (...) 2016, during which the Zika epidemic started, peaked, and declined. We identified three themes: (a) experiencing the news of a diagnosis of Zika‐associated microcephaly; (b) experiencing feelings and expectations of the ‘imperfect’ child; and (c) seeking to understand microcephaly to care for the child. We found that families experienced distressing feelings of shock, sadness, hopelessness, and pain, while dealing with emerging and sometimes conflicting information being transmitted by news outlets, uncertainty about the child's health, and healthcare providers’ lack of clarity to guide the family members. The ‘unknown’ factor of ZIKA was an additional stressful factor in the experience of the families. (shrink)

Logics for ‘generally’ were introduced for handling assertions with vague notions , which occur often in ordinary language and in science. LG’s provide a framework for distinct notions of ‘generally’: one builds a specific logic for the notion one has in mind. We introduce deductive systems, in natural deduction style, for LG’s and show that these systems are normalizable.